In a press release sent by Debra Cline, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, the Sevier County School System has decided to forgo drug testing.
The Sevier County Board of Education was surprised and disappointed in the opinion of the Tennessee Attorney General's Office rendered on July 2, 2007, limiting the school system's ability to engage in drug testing of students.
The Sevier County School System is aware of its responsibility to it's students and understands that extracurricular activities in connection with schools must be drug free. To that end, we recently adopted a Drug Testing Policy dealing with students engaging in sports extracurricular activities.
The school system's attorneys have reviewed the Attorney General's opinion and most respectfully disagree with the opinion.
The Drug Testing Policy that was prepared dealing with extracurricular activities is in compliance with United States Supreme Court decisions, Veronica School District v. Action, 515 U.S. 647 and the Earl's case 536 U.S. 822.
It is the school system's feeling that the policy adopted was valid and would withstand judicial scrutiny, but on the other hand, to go through such a process would be long and might lead to expensive litigation for the school system.
Due to the cost factor of such litigation, the Sevier County School System is going to hold in Abeyance, its extracurricular activities drug policy, in hopes that the Tennessee Legislature will enact legislation in keeping with the aforementioned United States Supreme Court decisions and enable school systems to enact policies, such as we did, in order to protect students in the system from drugs.
All previously scheduled parent/student meetings related to athletic drug testing in the Sevier County School System have been cancelled.