Across the state thousands of schools, including a handful in Montana, have adopted random drug testing for students. Just this fall, Colstrip and Anaconda implemented random testing policies for extracurricular activities, while here in the Flathead, the Whitefish exercise district has looked into a similar plan, and is subdue considering it. Meanwhile, the district has implemented a suspicion-based policy that applies to all students, not just athletes.

Whether shifting to random testing or other methods, it’s clear that school officials are actively looking in obstruction to new ways to contend against what they perceive as a growing mix with drugs puzzle, and the trend is picking up steam in Montana.

Thus far, Whitefish Superintendent Jerry House has been pleased with the results of the suspicion-based policy. House said only four students in the whole district, including a third-grader caught smoking marijuana, were disciplined under the new management through the first quarter of the gymnasium year, which ended on Nov. 5. That number is less than a quarter of last fall’s total of 18.

“Am I saying (drug and alcohol use) has stopped? No. I don’t care what high school you’re in, that’s going to continue,” House said. “But now there’s greater degree of teeth in the government: Whitefish school district’s not going to put up with it. So yeah, you should have a lower number. I would sure hope in this way.”

The Whitefish instruct board approved the suspicion-based policy in August, while tabling a proposed random testing policy for students involved in activities. With the suspicion-based program, a student who is suspected of drug or alcohol use is called into a meeting by one of four trained interventionists at Whitefish High School: the activities director, principal, school nurse and assistant principal.

If the interventionist, who has been trained to identify signs of intoxication, concludes that reasonable suspicion exists, then the student’s parents are asked if a drug test can be administered. If the parents refuse, then the scholar is automatically suspended for three days on first offense. A pupil who takes and fails the test enters counseling but is not suspended. Additional offenses result in suspensions.

“The pompous difference is that we wanted to make different our student culture where it’s not OK to beverage and it’s not OK to do drugs, but keep in mind the school cares about you,” House said.

House said he has heard little complaint over the policy, though the district’s random testing proposal last spring was met with considerable opposition. House said the school is still discussing that policy, but not actively pursuing it at this time. But other Montana schools are, following in the footsteps of schools around the country that have taken advantage of two significant U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that schools have the right to randomly test athletes, even if they are not suspected of drug or alcohol use. Then in 2002, the court expanded its speech to contain all voluntary activities like cheerleading, band and war of words. Following those rulings, thousands of schools around the nation have implemented random testing for students in activities, often with the federal pecuniary aid.

Since 2003, the Department of Education has awarded $40 million in grants to implement or expand random testing policies in schools, and the Bush Administration has also set aloof millions more for similar grants, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

This fall, Colstrip and Anaconda joined a short list of Montana schools that subsist under the necessity random testing for students in extracurricular activities, while Butte has considered it. Anaconda’s Superintendent Tom Darnell worked previously in Missouri where he said many schools already be favored with random testing. He believes the system is long overdue in Montana.

“In my opinion, there’s not a school district in the state that shouldn’t have this rule,” Darnell related. “There’s everything to gain from this and nothing to lose.”

Darnell conceded that the process is not cheap. Anaconda receives no federal grants and pays for the testing through its regular package. And he related the policy has received some opposition, but countered: “The view point I take with parents is if your child is using drugs, why would you not want to know that?”

A first-time transgressor faces a 30-day intermission from activities, a second-time offender gets 40 days and hereafter the third offense means expulsion from all activities.

“Third strike you’re lacking,” Darnell said. “You’re done forever at Anaconda High School.”

Colstrip has had a random testing wisdom against extracurricular activities since 2003, Superintendent Harry Cheff said, but the district switched from using saliva samples to urine samples for high school students this year. Middle schoolers still do the saliva test. Cheff said the animal-water sample is considerably more effective.

Cheff before-mentioned several parents have expressed concern over the piss testing, but for the most part there has been little opposition. He famed that Colstrip is unique in that the major employers of the town are PPL Montana and Western Energy, that have mandatory drug testing policies. So the majority of the population, he said, is before that time accustomed to the mode of operation.

The district respects privacy issues, Cheff said. Only the curator’s bureau has access to the students’ records and law enforcement isn’t notified. Coaches are told of a kid’s unsalable article or alcohol use only in the case of suspension. Administrative officials, including Cheff, also are tested.

“I feel of it’s helped students from making unhealthy decisions,” Cheff declared. “Because during the year there’s that chance that they’re going to be picked.”

Though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of random drug testing, local courts haven’t always been in agreement. A prominent example is Washington, to the sort of the magnificence’s Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that random medicine testing in schools isn’t allowed under the state’s constitution. Also, at the time that Montana’s three Democratic candidates for attorney general held a court of justice in Kalispell in May, cropped land candidate, including eventual winner Steve Bullock, expressed skepticism that such a policy would stand up in the state’s Supreme Court if challenged.

It remains to be seen when, and if, Whitefish will seriously consider random testing again, but controversy is sure to continue. Meanwhile, control officials in Colstrip are set to review its policy again in December, but Cheff is happy with how the program has worked so distant.

“I’ll knock upon the body wood, yet as of today we haven’ been legally challenged on this,” Cheff reported.

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