Pubdate: Thu, 12 Mar 2009
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2009 The Washington Times, LLC.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/A1kAshhc
Website: http://www.washingtontimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492
Author: Vaishali Honawar

RANDOM DRUG TESTS TEST TEACHER PRIVACY RIGHTS

Schools Adopt Policy For Safety

A growing number of school districts and states are trying to give 
teachers random drug tests, citing student safety concerns, but their 
efforts are running afoul of unions who say such tests violate 
teacher privacy rights.

In Missouri, the House education committee is weighing a bill that 
would require districts to randomly test teachers for drug use. 
Hawaii last year adopted a policy allowing teachers to be randomly 
tested, but implementation was stalled after the teachers union sued 
to block the policy as unconstitutional.

Elsewhere, at least four districts that have tried to implement 
random testing are either facing or have faced court challenges, with 
teacher groups, unions and civil libertarians invoking the Fourth 
Amendment that guarantees protection against unreasonable searches 
and seizures.

Supporters say teachers need to be tested for drug use because of a 
safety issue: children spend most of their waking hours in the 
company of teachers.

"Why should a school employee not be tested? After all, police 
officers, factory workers and people in most other industries can be 
randomly tested for drug use," said Missouri state Rep. Don Wells, a 
Republican who introduced the bill for testing teachers in his state's House.

The bill would require that districts randomly test teachers for 
narcotics in their bloodstream. Teachers who test positive would be fired.

Opponents of teacher drug testing say mandates such as ongoing, 
random tests are unnecessary, expensive and invasive.

"Folks who go into teaching are not the kind who use drugs," said 
Michael Simpson, assistant general counsel for the National Education 
Association (NEA), the nation's largest teachers union with 3.2 
million members.

He said the NEA supports testing of teachers when an administrator 
trained to detect drug abuse has reasonable suspicion that a teacher 
could be under the influence. Most districts now require such 
testing. But policies testing teachers for drugs at random force 
districts and states to spend precious education dollars, Mr. Simpson said.

In the Missouri bill, a fiscal note cites the cost of a single test 
at $51. Districts estimate that the cost could add up into thousands 
of dollars each year if they were to implement such testing.

Maryland, Virginia and the District have no policies requiring 
teachers to be tested randomly for drugs.

"This issue hasn't popped up here in Maryland," said Dan Kauffman, 
spokesman for the Maryland State Teachers Association.

Virginia Department of Education spokeswoman Julie Grimes said such a 
policy has not come up for consideration by either the department or 
the state legislature. School districts in the Greater D.C. area also 
say they have no such policies, nor are any under consideration.

In Fairfax County, spokesman Paul Regnier said the district would 
test any employee or student on suspicion of drug use. However, he 
said, the district has never considered a policy on randomly testing 
teachers for drugs.

"We do a very careful background check including fingerprints and 
previous arrest records" before hiring teachers, Mr. Regnier said.

Montgomery County Public Schools spokeswoman Kate Harrison said her 
district does not have a policy on random drug tests for teachers, 
nor does it have a policy requiring teachers suspected of drug use to 
be tested. However, she added, "if there is any indication that the 
teacher is unfit, the administrator and human resource office could 
legally" call for an investigation.

Hawaii's policy resulted from a push by Gov. Linda Lingle, a 
Republican, after six teachers were arrested in unrelated drug cases. 
The state Department of Education and the Hawaii State Teachers 
Association signed a contract last year agreeing to the tests in 
exchange for an 11 percent salary raise.

But when the state insisted that anyone in the state's 13,000-teacher 
work force could be tested at random under the policy, the teachers 
union, which said it had hoped to negotiate how the policy would be 
implemented, invoked teacher privacy rights and asked the state Labor 
Relations Board for a ruling. The board referred the matter to the 
circuit court, which has yet to issue a ruling.

Roger Takabayashi, the president of the Hawaii State Teachers 
Association, added that the union is prepared to go all the way to 
the state Supreme Court to ensure that teacher privacy rights are not violated.

Mitsue Kaneko, a special assistant in the Hawaii department of human 
resources, said that the testing was not meant to be punitive, but 
rather a deterrent. Teachers who tested positive would not be fired 
but would receive help recovering from drug abuse, she added.

Court rulings on the issue of testing teachers for drug use have gone 
both ways. While judges have sided with the teachers on privacy 
rights in some districts, others have agreed that districts can 
indeed test teachers.

In West Virginia, a federal judge in late December ruled against a 
new drug testing policy in the Kanawha County school system, saying 
it would force teachers to submit to an unconstitutional and 
unjustified search.

In Louisiana, the East Baton Rouge teachers union last year 
challenged a decade-long district policy for testing teachers who 
were injured on the job. The district, under a court injunction last 
month, agreed to suspend the testing for injured teachers. But it is 
continuing with a random drug testing policy under which it tests 
about 5 percent of the employees in the district in any given year, 
school district spokesman Chris Trahan said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana joined the teachers 
union in challenging the policy.

"It is a warrantless and suspicionless invasion of privacy," 
Louisiana ACLU Executive Director Marjorie Esman said. She noted that 
urine tests used to detect drugs reveal other private medical 
information, including prescription drugs that the teacher may be 
using, and even pregnancy.

But some districts in Kentucky and Tennessee have been randomly 
testing teachers for drug use for years, and some say the policy has 
helped. In Knott County, Ky., a federal court judge upheld testing 
teachers for drugs on the grounds that school officials had the 
authority to ensure a safe environment for children.

Knox County, Tenn., which won a lawsuit filed by its teachers union 
over its drug-testing policy, now tests all teachers before it hires 
them, but not after they have started working in the district. Kathy 
Sims, the executive director of human resources for Knox County 
Public Schools, said that the policy has been effective.

On average each year, she said, four or five hopeful employees test 
positive. "It is a great safety device with the well-being and safety 
of our students at heart," she said.

But teachers who have had to go through drug tests say they are 
humiliating. In East Baton Rouge, teacher Peggy Reno filed a lawsuit 
against the district. She said she was asked to take a drug test 
after she injured her shoulder while trying to break up a fight 
between two students.

Her attorney, Yigal Bander, who also represented the local teachers 
union in its lawsuit against the policy, said that immediately after 
the attack, instead of being offered any comfort or medical 
attention, Ms. Reno was asked by administrators to report immediately 
for a drug test.

"She was asked to wait around in a clinic for a drug test as if she 
was suspected of something," Mr. Bander said. "But she was just doing 
her job, and there was no suspicion of drug or alcohol use."
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart