Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Drug Testing Policy Adopted

Students planning to participate in extracurricular activities in the Gurdon School District need to be on their toes.

The district, recognizing chemical abuse or misuse is a health problem for students, has instituted a random drug testing policy for those in extracurricular events.

One of the reasons for this new policy is to help students say "no" to chemical and drug abuse.

However, the policy is not solely limited to the use of illegal drugs, alcohol and the misuse of legal drugs and medications.

Students will be assigned a number, which will be used for random testing.

The district will do its testing on particular days, with the number of students to be tested at any one time being a maximum of 50 per school year in grades 7-12.

Of this number, at least half will be chosen from those students involved in extracurricular activities.

Testing will be done each nine weeks, and if any student who's number is drawn is absent, the selection process will continue until 25 percent of the 50 student total is reached.

Students, their parents and/or guardians are strongly encouraged to sign a consent form for the random testing to be done. The consent forms should be signed at the beginning of the school year, with testing to be done at various times during the year.

The form must be co-signed by the student's custodial parent or legal guardian.

No student will be allowed to participate in any school activity until the consent form has been signed by both the student and their parent and/or guardian and is returned to the principal of their school.

For more information about the chemical screen testing, contact Jeff Alexander, principal at CMS, or Leonard Gills, Gurdon High School principal.