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| District 205 School Board Approves Random Drug Testing Procedures at GHS |
The District 205 Board of Education knows it won't be a perfect system, but members signed off on how random drug testing will be carried out at Galesburg High School.
The testing applies to students taking part in athletic, extra-curricular or co-curricular activities, and before they are eligible to participate, they and their parents will have to sign a consent form. The school board adopted the random drug testing policy last month, and last night, members voted 6-0 to approve the procedures for implementing it.
District 205 Human Resources Director Diane Van Hootegem says the tests will be conducted once a week.
"Three to four students would be tested, our hope is four students and that's the reason for the fifth randomly selected number to be drawn so that we could assure hopefully that four students could be tested that week. We currently have 35 weeks in our school calendar that we would do that with a possibility of starting it as early as the one week prior to school beginning."
Five numbers assigned to students will be randomly drawn from a computer program, and officials say the last number drawn will be used only if one of the four previously drawn students is absent. If a student is absent on the day their number is pulled, that test will be done the next day.
Board member Dr. Carl Strauch expressed concerns about names being leaked out and students being absent from school if they somehow learned they were going to be tested. Rick Welty stressed the process has to be anonymous and Dr. Barry Swanson says the program will have to be tweaked here and there, but it has to start somewhere and he trusts the people administering it.
The testing vendor will take a split sample from students. District officials say if the first sample tests positive, the student and a parent will meet with the athletic director and activities director to determine appropriate follow-up steps. That includes completion of the Insight Program at Bridgeway or a treatment plan recommended by staff at the agency before the student can resume an activity.
Parents can request another test within three business days at their expense. If it comes back negative, they will be reimbursed the cost.
The policy will be outlined in Galesburg High School's codes of conduct and posted on the district website in a few weeks. |
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| 07 13 09 by Newsroom |
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