NORTH JACKSON — A mother of a high school student has filed a lawsuit against Jackson-Milton’s Board of Education and Superintendent Kirk Baker, claiming they breached the district’s drug-testing policy.

Katie DeSavigny’s complaint, filed Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, claims her son’s positive test result for nicotine earlier this year under the random drug-testing policy constituted a first offense.

However, he was handled as a second offender and subsequently denied participation in athletics for the entire calendar year, according to the document’s first claim.

DeSavigny cited two of the school’s separate policies for student alcohol and drug usage — its athletic code of conduct and random drug testing policies — noting that the school treats violations outside of the random tests as a “three-step process.”

Random tests are also nondisciplinary and students are not to be suspended or expelled from school because of positive tests, according to the policy.

DeSavigny claimed her son was deprived of “liberty and property interests without due process of law,” in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Her son has suffered “shame, embarrassment, humiliation, anger and other emotional distress”, she added.

In the lawsuit, DeSavigny demands judgment against Baker totaling $25,000, as well as disallowing him to enforce the school’s athletic code of conduct.

DeSavigny also asked the board to acknowledge it breached its agreement with her son and proceed with disciplining him under the policy’s first-offense guidelines, as well as reasonable attorney fees, interest as provided by law and recovery of legal fees.

This isn’t the first time the district has been in the limelight for its drug-testing policies.

Seven parents and two students took to the podium to question the policy’s effectiveness at a board meeting last year.

Parents were critical of the school’s policy, with one saying it was singling out students, resulting in them being ridiculed, bullied and hazed. Parents pleaded with the board to reverse its decision then, with another adding it took away a majority of a student’s existence when school is the biggest part of it.

The school’s current policy, in place since 2019, tests students participating in extracurricular activities or who drive to school and park on school property. Third-time offenders of the policy are denied participation in athletics for one calendar year.

No one from the school district could be reached for comment.