Sitka school policy committee rejects copying Ketchikan's student drug-testing rule

Sitka's school policy committee rejected a staff recommendation to replace the district's student drug-testing regulation with Ketchikan's, and instead ordered two new drafts. One would cover any district activity or athletic program that involves travel, potentially reaching beyond sports into music, drama, debate and academic competition. The other would align Sitka's rule with the Alaska School Activities Association's Play for Keeps tobacco, alcohol and drug policy, in effect since 2008. The record does not say how wide the committee expects the travel draft to be.

The committee met in work session Wednesday, Sept. 9, at the District Office board room. Its packet set Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District's board policy, regulation and student form against Sitka's own documents, all numbered 5131.61, and carried a line in capitals at the head of Sitka's administrative regulation: "RECOMMENDATION: REPLACE WITH KETCHIKAN'S AR."

Sitka tests about 5 percent of participants in a covered sport each week during its season. Ketchikan's regulation tests about 10 percent every other week and lets the district test everyone at the start of an activity. It also covers middle schoolers, words absent from Sitka's regulation, adopted in July 2000 and last revised in July 2003.

Sitka suspends a student for an alcohol or drug violation for that activity's full season or 30 consecutive school days, whichever is longer, with separate tobacco penalties. Ketchikan runs four escalating steps, from a 10-day suspension and 20 hours of community service for a first violation up to a one-year suspension and 100 hours for a fourth, each ending with "Submission of a negative drug test (at student expense)." A student disputing a positive result must request a retest within 72 hours and pay in advance, reimbursed only if negative. Retesting is not available for alcohol.

The model also disagrees with itself: Ketchikan's regulation covers athletic activities, but its board policy, in the same packet, says students "involved in high school and middle school District sponsored student activities shall submit to ATOD testing," the alcohol, tobacco and other drug testing of its title.

Both districts cite the same two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton (1995) and Board of Education v. Earls (2002), which upheld suspicionless testing of athletes and then of students in extracurricular activities.

Sitka High School vice principal Tyler McCarty and activities director Megan Reid, who brought the recommendations to the committee as guests, are to write both drafts. "They were also directed to get input from SHS student government," the district's executive administrative assistant, Dawn Georgia, wrote in a recap circulated the next morning. No record of the committee since shows it has happened.

The drafts return to the committee Oct. 14. Drug testing is not among the four policies cleared to reach the school board Oct. 7.