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Vote will determine whether Oak Creek High students could be randomly drug tested

Testing would target extra-curricular activities
Posted: 8:28 PM, Feb 11, 2018
Updated: 2018-12-12 13:23:55-05
Vote will determine whether Oak Creek High students could be randomly drug tested

 

 

OAK CREEK, WI -- Expect a decision Monday on a different kind of pop quiz -- one proposed for students at Oak Creek High School.

The school board plans to vote on whether students in extra-curricular activities could be randomly drug tested.

Students who want a permit to park on campus would also be part of the random drug tests.

Superintendent Tim Culver tells TODAY'S TMJ4 that a concerned parent brought up the drug testing idea, and it's an issue since his first day.

"I had to bust kids with marijuana. That's almost 30 years ago," Culver said. 

Drug testing may not have been on anyone's minds then, but it is now.

Culver expects the school board to pass random drug tests for students in sports or extra-curricular activities at Monday's school board meeting at 6 p.m.

"If one student is involved in drugs, there's a problem we have to deal with," Culver said. 

If a student were to test positive, they would not be expelled or suspended. Consequences would be followed under the athletic code.

Addiction treatment social worker at Meta House Christine Ullstrup sees this as a good idea. She warns the school should be prepared to offer help and treatment to students who need it.

"We don't call people cancer we don't call them diabetes or tumor. These are people who have and addiction which is a disease they're not addicts," Ullstrup said.

Nearly a half-dozen school districts in southeast Wisconsin already perform some version of random drug testing in their high schools.

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Lea with the American Civil Liberties Union in Wisconsin call the proposed policy 'intrusive and demeaning.' 

If this proposal passes the board, random drug testing would not happen until 2019.