Suburban School Districts Are Randomly Drug Testing Students
Including Mukwonago, Arrowhead and Oconomowoc. Waukesha may soon follow.
The School District of Waukesha administration building is seen on June 23, 2022, in Waukesha, Wis. Coburn Dukehart/Wisconsin Watch
The School District of Waukesha could soon be the next district in Wisconsin to start randomly testing students for drugs.
A Waukesha district board of education committee recently discussed the possibility of drafting a policy to start a random drug testing program for students, which could apply to student-athletes or those who participate in extracurricular activities.
If a policy is approved, the School District of Waukesha would join several other area communities with similar measures in place for students.
Board Clerk David Wadd suggested the item be brought to the Student Services Committee for discussion on Tuesday. He said he had been recently reading up on the negative impacts of marijuana on children.
“I’m not interested in punishing students who use it,” Wadd said. “I’m interested in identifying them, deterring them, or trying to get them help.”
Wadd said the district already has programs in place to educate students about the impacts of drug use. There are also rules in the athletic codes around the use of illicit substances.
“But I wonder if a policy that we put in place — that we attach to athletics, activities and parking passes — might go a long way towards a: educating and b: deterring its use,” Wadd said.
Other nearby districts in the region already have random drug testing policies in place, including the Pewaukee School District, Mukwonago Area School District and the Arrowhead Union High School District.
A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld the ability for a school district to perform drug tests on certain students.
A random drug testing policy is in place for students who participate in “athletics and extra-curricular activities” at Pewaukee High School.
At the Arrowhead Union High School District, the random drug testing program is in place for students who participate in “athletics, co-curricular activities, and/or who obtain a parking permit to utilize District parking lots.”
At the Mukwonago Area School District, the policy applies to “high school participants in athletics, activities, students with parking permits and students attending optional school-sponsored events.”
The policies in those districts say students can be tested for substances like alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines or other controlled substances defined under state law. The policies also say that no student shall be “expelled or suspended” solely due to the result of a positive test.
In an email, Conrad Farner, Superintendent of the Arrowhead Union High School District, said the district pays for the testing. He said 20 students are “randomly selected, roughly once a month.”
“No student shall be expelled or suspended from school as a sole result of any verified positive test conducted by the District under this program,” the Arrowhead Union High School District policy says. “However, students with a verified positive test under this program will be subject to the conditions set forth in the Athletics/Activities Code.”
Farner said a nurse from ProHealth does the urine test.
“Throughout the process, student ID numbers are used, not names,” Farner said. “If the test is negative, a letter is sent home from AHS (Arrowhead High School). If the test is positive, a doctor from ProHealth calls the parent(s).”
Wadd said he will be exploring other school district policies for randomized drug testing. He said any policy at the School District of Waukesha would likely only be in place for the “high school age group.”
“As part of the exploration process we’re going to be talking to other districts that have this policy in place,” Wadd said in an interview with WPR. “And I would think that we’ll learn a lot more about why they have chosen the student populations that they have.”
School District of Waukesha Superintendent James Sebert said the Muskego-Norway Schools District and Oconomowoc Area School District also have randomized drug testing policies in place.
Karrie Kozlowski, treasurer of the Waukesha School Board, said she supports a random drug testing policy for the district. However, she raised questions on how much it could cost and who would be doing the drug tests.
Sebert said he anticipates that a draft of a policy could be discussed by the Student Services Committee in May. The implementation of any new policy would not start until the 2026-2027 school year, he said.
“Next steps include further due diligence to understand the various components contained within a random drug testing process for a school district,” Sebert wrote in a statement.
This Wisconsin school district could soon start randomly drug testing students was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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