Granite set to vote on drug testing

} The Granite School Board is put to vote tonight on a airplane pilot programme that would necessitate random drug testing of high school athletes. If the three-year experimental is approved, Granite School District would be the biggest territory in the state to prove jocks for drugs. Only Gilbert Murray and Rich districts, which each have got only one high school, now make drug testing. Granite devised the programme as portion of a drug and alcoholic beverage maltreatment bar effort, for which it received a $1.2 million federal grant. Student athletes' spit would be tested for alcoholic beverage and drugs such as as marijuana, territory spokesman Randy Ripplinger said. Saliva diagnostic tests can observe controlled matters two or three years after the matters are used. The programme would not prove for performance-enhancing drugs, he said. Parents would have got information about the diagnostic tests and the program's goals, and would have to give permission for testing to occur. However, they would have got to hold to random drug testing in order for their children to play sports. Granite managers and jocks generally O.K. of random drug testing, but wonderment why jocks are the lone pupils who will be tested. "It's a good thing, because it will set some fearfulness into the children and warn them that they can't be doing those things," Farmer football game manager Jonny Matich said. "But . . . [it] Advertisement

is not just that they [plan to] diagnostic test just athletes."
Skyline High volleyball game star Chelsea Fa'alogo agreed jocks shouldn't be singled out, but "I will make it, no problem," she said. The testing is directed toward jocks "because of their leading and function theoretical account positions," according to the district. The Beehive State High School Activities Association's stance have been to go forth the drug-testing determinations - and costs - up to individual school districts. However, UHSAA bylaws state that jocks caught using drugs or alcoholic beverage should be suspended from games and activities. The UHSAA policy would use in Granite's case. The policy also necessitates contiguous presentment of parents in the event of a positive test. Taylorsville's Rich Kaelin, who have coached playground ball and volleyball game for more than than 20 old age in the district, said he's generally in favour of the testing, despite some invasion-of-privacy concerns. "If my [athletes] were not following the regulations that we have got set, I would actually like to know," he said. "It aches them, it aches the school and it aches their teammates, so any kind of bar [measures] would be welcome."
Farmer athletic manager Joy Lynn Clark, who coached playground ball for 13 years, said she worries about the truth of the testing, but prefers it as a deterrent. "Drug and alcoholic beverage usage is a problem, but it is not necessarily an sport problem," she said. "It is schoolwide, and it is in all schools. If you desire them, you can acquire them anywhere."
Granite trusts the broader programme will turn to drug and alcoholic beverage maltreatment throughout the district. The federal grant also will pay for alcoholic beverage and drug maltreatment bar social classes for all sophomores. Students will larn about healthy lifestyles and will be taught schemes that advance sound determination making, said DeAnn Diamond, the district's at-risk coordinator, who wrote the grant for the program. "It will give children the other added crutch . . . if they necessitate it or support in reducing alcoholic beverage abuse," Diamond said. rorellana@sltrib.com,
drew@sltrib.com Board to vote tonight

* The Granite School Board will vote tonight on a airplane pilot programme to randomly prove pupil jocks for alcoholic beverage and drugs. * The meeting starts astatine 7 p.m. at Granite School District offices, 2500 S. State St., South Salt Lake.