SUPERIOR – The Superior School District board decided, with a few adjustments, to keep their current drug testing policy for students engaged in extra curricular activities and to begin random testing in coming months.

The meeting, with the school district’s attorney, was to ensure the policy was on solid legal ground and would not infringe upon the rights of students. Students who want to participate in extra curricular and co-curricular activities from grades 5-12 are required by official school policy to sign an agreement authorizing testing for substances considered illegal by the state of Montana or controlled by the Food and Drug Administration.

Superior School District Superintendent Scott Kinney said the delay in testing students was in order to consult with council to ensure the policy was legally viable. Kinney said the policy was designed to keep students safe while involved with extra curricular activities.

“The over arching concern the board has is curbing drug and alcohol related behavior,” Kinney said. “We wanted to make sure our ducks were in a row and we were complying with state law. It is legal for the district to randomly select kids for testing that are voluntarily signing up for various programs.”

The way testing will work, according to Kinney, is for example, at the beginning of a sports season coaches will submit a roster to Kinney who will in turn submit it to a facility in Spokane, WA called Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories (PAML). PAML will randomly select students for testing and those results will be emailed to Kinney.

Those students selected will be tested and parents of those students will be notified by the end of the school day by Administration or the school nurse. Random drug testing will be conducted at least three times per year and the administration reserves the right to test any student participating in extra curricular activities who they suspect may be using an illegal substance.

The policy further states, “if a positive test occurs, the parents/guardians of the student will be notified within 72 hours of the district receiving the results from the drug testing agency.”

Superior High School Principal Allan Labbe reiterated Kinney’s statement that the reason the district held off until now to conduct testing was to reduce the odds that the district could be subjected to legal action. Labbe said, despite the precautions and actions taken to avoid a costly lawsuit, there was still the possibility that the district could be taken to court over the matter.

“We decided to stay the course,” Labbe said. “We decided to clean up the policy a little bit to make it more defendable and the board agreed we should move on with this.”

Labbe said testing would commence this winter.