Goodwin

CHARLESTON -- The Kanawha County Board of Education will not be able to randomly drug test teachers, thanks to a preliminary motion granted Monday by U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin.

At least not for now.

The decision comes after the American Federation of Teachers -- West Virginia filed a suit Nov. 26 in Kanawha Circuit Court asking for the court to end the board's plan to randomly test employees beginning in January. The school board moved the case to federal court Dec. 9.

Because Goodwin granted the preliminary motion, the next step for AFT-WV is to gather evidence to request a permanent injunction that would prevent the school board from ever being allowed to perform random drug tests on employees, said Bob Bastress Jr., an attorney for AFT-WV.

The Dec. 29 hearing was important for teachers across the county, Bastress said.

"I think they felt they were being asked to participate in a process that was totally unnecessary and an invasion of their privacy," he said.

Goodwin agreed, saying teachers were forced to submit to an unconstitutional and unjustified search.

Before the hearing, AFT-WV and other teachers' unions warned the Kanawha County School Board of the dangers of passing a drug testing policy, Bastress said.

"We told the board the law was not on their side," he said. "Judge Goodwin agreed with us. The board was forewarned, but they decided to push ahead."

Before today's hearing, school boards in other counties across the mountain state have already started talking about implementing a similar drug-testing policy, Judy Hale, president of AFT-WV said.

"They are waiting to see what will happen," she said before the hearing.

Two other groups who filed similar suits -- West Virginia Education Association and American Civil Liberties Union -- still have their complaints at the state level, Hale said.

The decision to randomly test employees violates their constitutional rights, Fred Albert, president of AFT-Kanawha said in a news release.

"The Board left us no choice but to file the suit once they decided to implement a policy that risks student safety and violates the constitutional rights of its employees," he said. "The policy, in effect, places all teachers under suspicion; and this is both morally and legally wrong."

Albert told the Charleston Daily Mail the money spent on the testing and the suit, which could amount to several hundred thousand dollars in court and about $40,000 per year for drug testing, could be put to better use in the classroom and used to reduce the student drop out rate.

The school board argued something bad could happen if a teacher who was under the influence of drugs was supervising children.

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