Houma Courier

Lindel Toups

It is a move that could potentially affect thousands of public school employees in the state of Louisiana: random drug testing.

"I think it's going to get rid of the bad teachers and the teachers you're going to have are going to be good teachers," said Lafourche Parish Councilman Lindel Toups.

Toups is a member of the Lafourche Parish Council and in ten days, the council will vote on whether to send a non-binding resolution to the state legislature, a resolution that would ask legislators to look into passing a law and to require random drug and alcohol testing of public school employees.

"If you've got nothing to hide,” said Toups, “why shouldn't you want to get drug tested. I mean, let's face it-- we're fooling ourselves when we seem to think there's not drugs in our schools and I'm doing this because I had a son and a grandson that had drug problems."

But the proposal is drawing criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union. They say such a law would violate the Fourth Amendment.

"The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees everybody the right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures and requires a search warrant before anybody can be searched. And, of course, a drug test is essentially a search of your body," said Marjorie Esman from Louisiana ACLU.

Right now, though, public school bus drivers are subject to such a test.

"They do it to bus drivers and the bus drivers complain and say, 'Why do we have to get drug tested, if the school teachers don't have to?'” asked Toups.

"Driving a school bus is a different matter because driving a school bus really does involved physical safety of children. If you're driving under the influence, you can kill people," Esman said.

The ACLU says instead of random testing they believe it would be better to test any school employee that is exhibiting signs of being under the influence of drugs and alcohol...

"If there's a particular teacher or employee who there is reason to believe might be impaired, well then target that employee,” said Esman. “You don't target innocent people with no suspicion, just in kind of a dragnet to find one or two people who may or may not be problems."

"Why should you be scared to take a drug test if you're not on drugs?” asked Toups. “And I think it's something that's long overdue."