R-5 district to look into drug testing policy

Nevada, Mo. -- During a regular meeting at the district's central offices on Wednesday, the Nevada R-5 Board of Education approved looking into a drug testing policy for all participants in any extra-curricular activity. The administration will try to find how to best implement the policy and see if the policy could be in place by the start of classes in the fall. The board will revisit the policy at the June meeting.

Superintendent David Stephens said the policy wasn't intended to entrap students but to empower them.

"We're not looking to bust kids with this policy," Stephens said. "This is intended to give them another reason to say no. If they get into a situation they don't have to just say no, they can say "No, I better not, I might get tested."

The testing would be completely random unless an administrator had a reasonable suspicion that a student was using drugs. In that case the testing company could be directed to make sure the student was tested.

Assistant Superintendent Christie Peterson updated the board on the flooding buildings in the district, especially Truman Elementary, experienced during a recent downpour.

Part of the problem Truman experienced was caused by the lay of the land, a 10-square block area drains into the corner of the high school track at the intersection of College and Hickory and from there onto Truman.

"There's a 10-square block area, that's 100 blocks that drain onto the corner of the track," Peterson said. "There's a 15 foot drop from that corner to the Truman parking lot, the water is concentrated in that area."

According to Peterson there have been three major incidents of flooding at Truman since it was built and steps were taken to ease the problem but they haven't been enough.

"There's a big concrete drain that goes under Truman," Peterson said. "There is a grate in the middle of the track that goes into that drain and last time we found someone had put a big rock there that plugged it. This time an employee waded out into the middle of the track to see if that had happened again but it was working like it should."

The board will work with the city and the county to alleviate the problem and look into the possibility of getting some financial assistance from the federal government.

Assistant Principal Bill Johnston gave a report to the board on the attendance policy and recommended it be tightened up in a manner similar to the cell phone policy.

"When we tightened the cell phone policy students started being more careful about it and I think the same thing would happen if we tightened up the attendance policy," Johnston said.

The board voted to approve the new policy.