Want to park your car? Pass a drug test if you’re a Lex 1 student

Random drug tests await students who drive to and park their vehicles at Lexington 1’s five high schools once classes resume Aug. 15.

It is the latest step by officials in Lexington County’s largest school district to discourage teenage drug use, a move that is among the first of its kind in South Carolina.

Parents generally say they applaud the idea, but one civil rights group warns it could be illegal if it leads to profiling students.

The school system says drug tests for drivers are an extension of drug checks for student-athletes in grades 7-12, which were started a year ago.

Adding drivers is “just a logical next step” in protecting students and promoting healthy lifestyles, Lexington 1 officials say in an explanation sent to families.

In exchange for the school system’s permission to park their cars on Lexington 1 campuses, students must agree to undergo a school-sponsored drug test if they are picked at random.

About 2,400 student parking permits are issued each year at Gilbert, Lexington, Pelion, River Bluff and White Knoll high schools, officials said. About one in 10 Lexington 1 students gets a parking permit.

A student who fails one drug test would lose their parking privileges for 14 days. Repeat offenses would result in longer suspensions.

To have their parking privileges restored, students would have to pass subsequent drug tests and undergo counseling at their parents’ expense.

The school system has no plans to check on underage alcohol consumption.

“It’s a very liberal policy,” said parent Leslie Loncon, who has worked in human resources. “It gives you time to get your act together.”

Loncon and another parent of River Bluff students said the plan increases security for their children, who commute to the campus near Lexington.

“It’s for safety,” said Kiki Wooley, whose 17-year-old daughter sometimes gives friends rides to and from school. “It prevents danger to others.”

Agreeing to drug tests for her 15-year-old son to play football last fall wasn’t inconvenient, Loncon said, and requiring a drug test to park on campus isn’t a problem.

Such tests are becoming common today in many activities, she said.

“I don’t see it as invasive,” Loncon said. “It’s likely students will face this sometime in their lives as a condition of employment.”

Plans call for one in four drivers to be tested, a rate similar to that of student-athlete testing.

Five of 877 athletes tested positive for drugs during the past year, officials said.

However, one expert warned Lexington 1 could find itself at risk if the tests for drivers are challenged.

Drug tests for student drivers appear “a bit of an overreach,” said Susan Dunn, legal analyst for the S.C. chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Dunn said the testing requirement raises privacy questions that are not fully defined legally and concerns about profiling – where students are disproportionately tested because of their race or sex or ethnicity.

“It sets you up for those kind of questions, so why would they want to be put in that position?” she said.

Others think Lexington 1 is on safe ground with the requirement.

“Generally speaking, requiring drug tests can be utilized when safety concerns are present and prevalent,” said David Duff, a Forest Acres attorney who advised Lexington 1 officials about the plan.

Parking at school is considered a privilege, he said, adding conditions can be added to that privilege.

Lexington 1’s plan to test student drivers might be trend-setting among South Carolina’s 81 school districts. Other school districts in the Columbia area do not test student drivers, officials at six of those districts said.

“I don’t think there are that many” other school systems, said Duff, whose legal expertise includes education.

The Anderson 5 and Beaufort County school districts require random drug tests of all students in extracurricular activities as well as sports, according to their websites. Beaufort also plans to add drug testing for parking in 2017.

Officials at the state Department or Education and the S.C. Association of School Boards said they don’t track student drug testing.

Lexington 1 has left the door open to broadening the scope of its random drug tests beyond athletes and drivers.

When the drug-testing plan for sports was adopted in April 2015, there was discussion of slowly expanding testing to other activities. But no decision was specified then, school board records say.

Testing – expected to cost $41,000 in the coming academic year – is going no farther for now, Lexington 1 spokesperson Mary Beth Hill said.

“Parents are encouraging the district to add more groups,” Lexington 1 said in its explanation of the drug-testing policy sent to families. “However, the district currently has no plans to expand the program any more than this.”

This story was originally published August 6, 2016 at 7:32 PM with the headline "Want to park your car? Pass a drug test if you’re a Lex 1 student."