CCR-1 Board To Ask Attorney To Draft Drug Testing Policy

CCR-1 Board To Ask Attorney To Draft Drug Testing Policy

By Mike Scott

Random drug testing of CCR-1 High School students is one step closer, after the school board agreed to have its attorney draft a policy to allow the testing.
If adopted at a future board meeting, roughly 24-30 students per month, depending on the current sports season, would be subject to the test. Only students involved in extracurricular activities, or those parking in the High School lot, would be subject to the tests, which would be administered by an outside company.
At the thursday, April 14 meeting, High School principal Jason Harper and Middle School principal Jason Church presented information gathered from other schools that have an existing policy.
Their proposal included the need to test not only for illegal drugs, but also for masking agents in the blood. The board could also include performance enhancing drugs in the policy, whether they chose to regularly test for the those substances or not.
Students could lose 30 days of extra curricular and parking privileges s for a first offense. A second offense could bring a 180 day suspension from activities, and a third could permanently bar students from extracurricular events and parking.
“A few years ago, we didn’t feel the need for testing,” said Harper. “Unfortunately, now we do.”
“We hope testing 23-30 kids per month is enough to be a real deterrent,”?added Church.
The board will need to review and approve the policy at a future meeting before any testing would begin.
The board installed Brad Sprague, Kevin Ross, Kari Bevans and Jason Acklie as board members.
New officers for the coming year will be: President-Brad Sprague, Vice-President-Bill Schutte, Treasurer-Kari Bevans and Secretary-Martha Ewart.
State Representative Craig Redmon presented the district with a plaque honoring the district for achieving “Distinct in Performance” status again.
Redmon also gave an update on school-related activities in the state legislature.
“We fought against open enrollment,” he said. “It would be a killer for rural schools. Inner city schools need a fix, and we’re trying to work for some solution to help them.”
In other business, the board:
–Heard safety and Career Ladder program reports.
–Superintendent Ritchie Kracht reported that the district will receive a $108,000 annual windfall from the state due to an error in figuring the assessed valuation when the Wyaconda district was merged two years ago. ?The state will also pay the back amount from the past two years.
–The board approved hiring charles Luebbert Hardwood Floors to resurface the High School and Middle School gym floors this summer.
–The board approve the 2011-12 Building Trades bid submitted by Kent Nixon.
–Approved a boiler service agreement with Trane.
–Heard a report on construction progress. Ground work has started again, and air conditioning units should be installed by the end of April. Other projects will start as soon as school is out.
The board reviewed the findings of their recent self evaluation.