Marijuana Policy Project

The Alexandria School Board voted unanimously Monday night to enact a drug testing policy that will affect high school students who either drive to school or participate in extracurricular activities or sports programs.

Alexandria-Monroe High School Principal Jim Regenold said that starting next year students an estimated 250 will be randomly drug tested at a rate of 20 per month. Any student who tests positive for drugs or alcohol will be suspended from parking at school, or their respective extracurricular/sports activity.

"They're going to be put in a pool, and will be assigned a number," said Regenold. "And 20 numbers will be pulled out each month ... and those students will be tested."

The drug tests, which will cost about $600 per month, are being paid for by a combined federal and state grant, said Scott Zent, the school's student services director.

Discussions about the drug testing policy have been ongoing since the beginning of the school year, said Regenold. He also said that response from the student body and parents has been "supportive."

"(The students) I have spoke to have not had a problem with it ... and with some parents, again the same thing," said Regenold. "Hopefully we'll be helping the students who need help, get help."

Regenold said that he hopes the policy will undermine peer pressure, since the consequences of using drugs will have an impact on the students' in-school social lives.

Regenold said that on their first offense a student will be banned from school parking for 90 days, while athletes will be suspended for 50 percent of a season and extracurricular participants will be suspended for 90 days. A second offense carries longer suspensions, and a third offense means being banned from activities for an entire school year.

But the punishments are flexible a student may be granted amnesty if he or she agrees to follow a drug counselor's advice, said Regenold.

Dr. Thomas Gaunt, president of the school board, said that the purpose of the drug testing was not to punish kids, but to identify and help those at-risk for drug dependency.

"I can't over-emphasize enough that the purpose is not to be punitive, but to identify at-risk kids to get them back on track," said Gaunt. "At least we're trying to do more to recognize the problem and help the kids who are at-risk."

Gaunt said that the Alexandria policy was modeled after a similar policy that went into effect in Rushville in the mid-1990s. John Worth, the attorney for the Rushville Schools Corporation, led the charge to have students drug tested after seeing an increase in drug use among students. The policy was opposed outright by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, said Worth, and the policy was dragged through the courts but, in the end, the district won the right to test students. Worth said that the policy has been duplicated all over the state, and Rushville has seen a decrease in drug use.

"We felt that the policy gave the kids a reason to tell their peers 'no,'" said Worth. "All in all we've been pleased with it in Rushville, there's been very little controversy. I know we all have drugs in schools, but it's probably not as prevalent as the public likes to think or believe."