STRUTHERS Student fights school district in court

Officials should not have forced the student to take a urine test, his lawyer says.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A Struthers High School student, suspended from school after testing positive for marijuana, is fighting the action in court.
Joseph Patrick Boland, a sophomore at the high school, and his mother, Patty Boland, filed the action Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
It says the school district acted improperly in suspending the boy and placing him a juvenile diversion program.
The action seeks to reverse the suspension and remove all mention of it from the boy's school records. It also asks that the district's search and seizure policy be declared unconstitutional.
Court order
Judge Robert Lisotto signed an emergency order Tuesday afternoon barring the district from placing Joseph into the diversion program until the issue over his suspension is resolved.
Superintendent Sandra J. DiBacco did not return telephone calls for comment.
According to court records, school officials found a note in a classroom Sept. 18 indicating that certain students might have a small amount of marijuana in their possession.
The juvenile officer and a detective from the Struthers Police Department were summoned and pupils were questioned about their possible involvement.
Joseph Boland was questioned because the note mentioned a pupil named "Joseph," according to the Boland's lawyer, Martin E. Yavorcik.
Without the consent of Boland's parents, school officials searched Boland's school locker and had the boy provide officers with a urine sample, Yavorcik said.
The sample was field tested and indicated the presence of marijuana, Yavorcik said. Other pupils were tested but showed no presence of drugs, according to court documents.
Suspended
Based on the outcome of the urine test, Yavorcik said Joseph Boland was suspended for five days, three of which have been served.
The unused urine was given to the boy's mother, who took it to a local hospital for a laboratory test, which showed no drugs in his system, Yavorcik said.
A second urine sample, given at the hospital the day after his suspension, also tested negative for drugs, Yavorcik said.
Despite those results, the school board refused to overturn the suspension on appeal.
Yavorcik doesn't dispute that the district has the right to search students.
"But they needed more than just the evidence they had in order to do an invasive search," Yavorcik said. "That should be done only in very, very limited circumstances."
He also criticized the school district's handling of the incident.
"It's now all over Struthers that this kid is a drug user, but he's not," Yavorcik said.
"He's a great kid, and this is ruining his reputation."
bjackson@vindy.com