School board considers student drug testing

The Cen­tral Local School board voted unan­i­mously approved putting a bond levy and income tax issue on the March 2016 bal­lot for vot­ers to decide.
First, the income tax, if approved, would be for 0.25 per­cent on tax­able income of indi­vid­u­als and estates, col­lected over 23 years. Dis­trict offi­cials said it would pro­vide a quar­ter of a mil­lion dol­lars a year to finance con­struc­tion of the new mid­dle and high school build­ing.
Next, the pro­posed bond issue would gen­er­ate about $7.14 mil­lion at approx­i­mately two mills over 37 years. Both the income tax and bond issue are the max­i­mum lev­els of fund­ing for the build­ing project.
Finally, drug test­ing for stu­dents also was on the agenda. The school board also heard a pre­sen­ta­tion on a ran­dom drug test­ing pol­icy by a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Great Lakes Bio­med­ical in Per­rys­burg.
The school board is con­sid­er­ing test­ing all ath­letes, stu­dents who drive to school, and those par­tic­i­pat­ing in any non-academic activ­ity, club or orga­ni­za­tion. Stu­dents who then test pos­i­tive would attend a drug reha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­gram at his or her guardian’s expense. Sec­ond and third pos­i­tive tests result in sus­pen­sions from the student’s activity.