Cle Elum schools suspend drug tests

The Cle Elum-Roslyn School District is suspending its random drug testing of high-school students participating in extracurricular activities, in response to the state's high court ruling Thursday that testing student athletes is unconstitutional.

The policy could be abandoned altogether pending legal counsel from the district's attorney.

Thursday, the Washington Supreme Court, responding to a lawsuit over a drug-testing program in the Wahkiakum School District, ruled unanimously that random drug testing of students violates the state constitution.

Parents and students in the Southwest Washington district challenged a policy adopted in 1999 that required all students participating in sports to undergo urine tests. If the results indicated drug or alcohol use, the student was suspended from sports but wasn't reported to police.

The court agreed with parents and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that suspicionless testing violates the "privacy clause" of the state constitution.

In light of the ruling, Mark Flatau, superintendent of the 1,000-student Cle Elum-Roslyn district, said it will immediately stop randomly testing students participating in sports and extracurricular activities. The policy applied to Cle Elum-Roslyn High School's 320 students.

"Personally I was disappointed," Flatau said of the court's ruling. "I view our policy as one that provides our youth a reason to say 'no' when pressured in regards to alcohol and drugs."

Under Cle Elum's policy, which was adopted by the school board in May 2005, a computer randomly selected students participating in sports or other extracurricular activities to have their saliva tested for traces of drugs up to three times during the fall and winter seasons.

A student who tested positive could continue to attend class, but faced varying lengths of suspension from sports or campus organizations. The student also was required to enroll in a district-approved treatment program.

Before Thursday's ruling, district officials had planned to have at least two more random tests of students in sports and extracurricular activities during the spring. Those are now suspended.

Thursday's ruling was the first time the state Supreme Court weighed in on such random drug-testing policies.

ACLU spokesman Doug Honig said he's pleased with the decision and hopes it spurs other state districts to drop similar drug-testing policies.