Schools Consider Random Drug Testing

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- First Battle Mountain High School outside Avon debated the issue of random drug testing of students in sports and other activities, now schools in Colorado Springs are debating the same idea.

Currently, no public or private high schools in the Colorado Springs area do random drug testing for students in extracurricular activities. Most have a policy allowing them to order drug testing under a reasonable suspicion standard set by a 1995 Supreme Court decision that also allowed drug-sniffing dogs and locker and purse searches, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Cathryn Hazouri, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, told the newspaper she expects random drug testing to happen for students involved in extracurricular activities.

A forum was held last month in Pagaso Springs by the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy. According to the Gazette, the forum addressed the major issues of student privacy, cost, how to write a policy and how to get parents involved.

One administrator said the forum convinced participants that such a policy is feasible but that selling the idea to parents may be difficult.

According to the Gazette, Ignacio High School, in the town of Ignacio, near Durango, is the only secondary school in Colorado to have random drug testing. Assistant Principal Melanie Taylor said in the program's three years no student has tested positive.

The school holds random testing two or three times each season for up to five students at a time, Taylor said.

Read more about the Colorado Springs debate in Monday's Colorado Springs Gazette.