Drug arrest spotlights school policy

The Gazette does not publish names of people who have been charged with crimes as juveniles.

According to Lt. Thomas V. Chase of the Frederick Police Department, on March 6, Frederick police witnessed a GMC truck driving on Carrollton Drive without its headlights illuminated. An officer pulled over the truck, and found Christian J. Preston, 18, of Frederick to be in possession of marijuana. The officer also found five small bags of marijuana in the truck, Chase said.

The officer charged Preston with possession of marijuana and a headlight violation. The student athlete was a passenger in the truck, and was also charged with possession of marijuana.

As a result, school officials are investigating the athlete to determine if he should be suspended from playing sports.

School system penalties for high school students caught using, possessing, or dealing drugs range from a five-day suspension to expulsion.

The way schools find out about such incidents varies. Marita Loose, school system spokeswoman, said police will sometimes call schools if they arrest a student. ‘‘We may get a heads-up from a school enforcement officer,” Loose said. ‘‘Sometimes it’s more than just a courtesy call.”

Chase said the Frederick Police Department will only notify a high school if a student is charged with a serious crime. The department did not notify the school in this case because the charge is a minor offense, he said.

In the absence of police contact, or the student coming forward, school officials can start an investigation based on anything, including rumors.

‘‘We have the rule, when information comes to our attention, we investigate it,” said Lynn Carr, supervisor of athletics for the school system. ‘‘I don’t want to oversimplify it, but that’s the rule. It’s a very important issue to us. We have anonymous letters and phone calls and e-mails.”

Carr said that there have been cases this school year when students were removed from extracurricular activities because of drug use, but only when they were found guilty after a school-based investigation.

‘‘This is a personal, student-parent issue,” Carr said. ‘‘The school system would never release this information.”

The matter is compounded when the minor is considered a student leader, a position given to those who represent the school in athletics, clubs or other organizations. The burden of proof is lower. According to the school system handbook, arrests, convictions, and legal judgments are not needed to suspend a student from extracurricular activities.

‘‘Athletes are considered school leaders, and are held to a higher standard because they’re representing the school,” Loose said.

However, merely being investigated does not result in a player being removed from an athletic team. Only after being found guilty from a school-based investigation are they removed from athletics for the remainder of the season or 20 days, whichever is greater.

An administrative appeal is allowed at this point, and according to Loose, parents are always involved in these decisions. ‘‘The situation involves a juvenile, and that is important to keep in mind,” Loose said. ‘‘There are very few students that are actually arrested.”

Ned Sparks, executive director of the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association, the governing body for the state’s public schools, said that there are no plans to have drug testing at a state level.

‘‘There is no drug testing for performance enhancing drugs, or any other drugs for that matter,” Sparks said. ‘‘We have no rules that talk about that, but then again we have no rules against murder or rape.”