Marijuana Policy Project

OXFORD — Oxford High personnel spent most of two hours explaining and defending the Oxford Board of Education's policy on student drug testing to a group of about two dozen parents on Monday night at the school.

The policy requires parents or guardians of students participating in sports or other competitive extracurricular activities or even those with on-campus driving privileges to give permission for their children to be in a pool estimated at more than 600 from which about 20 students will be randomly chosen each month for drug screening.

"The Oxford School District and the Board of Trustees want you to understand that we are attempting to be pro-active," said Assistant Athletic Director Bradley Roberson. He said the program would give students "another avenue" to turn down offers of drugs.

Athletic Director Johnny Hill, who will be the school's point man for testing and follow-up, said students who test positive will undergo drug counseling at school expense. A follow-up positive reading requires a suspension of privileges for at least eight weeks. A third positive test would suspend extracurricular activities and driving privileges for the next 12 months.

"We're not out to catch anybody," Hill said. "We're out to help them. Rule number one is whatever is best for kids."

While the program had some tentative support, parents voiced concerns that individual students could be hurt in the process by anything from false positives and damaged reputations to scaring away students from extracurricular activities and creating "an adversarial environment."

A representative of the company that will do the tests said positive readings will be retested, and parents will be asked if any lawfully prescribed medications might have influenced the test. Students' results will be revealed to administrators and activity sponsors only on a need-to-know basis.

"Some kids will go out there and say, I got busted for drugs.' We can't help that, but the information won't come from us," Hill said. "If I can't (keep this confidential), I expect the board to fire me and find somebody who can."

Hill, whose former assignments include Tupelo High School, insisted he'd seen random testing work.

"At a school that's done this for four years, I think the most we had test positive was five kids," he said. "And nobody ever tested positive the second time."

One person asked why, since uninvolved students are most at risk for drug use, the whole student body couldn't be tested. Roberson said courts have said courts have ruled that because public schools must educate all comers, they cannot require students to be tested just to be in the classroom.

"It's under the umbrella of privilege," Roberson answered. "It's not a right for your kid to play baseball; it's not a right for your child to be able to drive to school."