The state Board of Education last night postponed a decision on controversial amendments to the public school system's disciplinary rules — including changes that would allow for student locker searches and drug-sniffing dogs.

After nearly three hours of discussion and public testimony, BOE Chairman Garrett Toguchi said the board would table its discussion of Chapter 19 until the board's June 18 meeting.

Several Neighbor Island members planned to leave the meeting prior to a decision being reached, which would have prevented the board from maintaining quorum, he said.

For nearly two years, board members have been grappling over sweeping changes to the state administrative rule governing student conduct and discipline. A major portion of the disagreements have focused on provisions that would allow for searches of student lockers and the presence of drug-sniffing dogs on public school campuses solely at the discretion of principals and school administrators.

At yesterday's meeting, several attorneys and other community members warned against the changes, calling them everything from bad policy to unconstitutional.

Pamela Lichty, the president of the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, said the revisions are "zero tolerance" in nature, which she believes are ineffective in school environments. She also testified against suspicionless searches and drug-sniffing dogs, saying it "invokes images of a prison or a totalitarian regime."

"It may be legal — it's controversial whether it is legal — but the question is, is it good policy?" Lichty said.

Speaking on behalf of University of Hawai'i law professor Jon Van Dyke, Sinclair Ferguson told board members that the changes are "broad and sweeping" in nature and would allow any school official to inspect the content of a child's locker at any time, without reason.

"Proposed changes ... relating to locker searches are inconsistent with Hawai'i and federal law, which require particularized suspicion before conducting any type of search," he said.

OPPOSITION VOICED

Board members spent a significant portion of yesterday's meeting discussing various amendments proposed by board member Kim Coco Iwamoto, an outspoken opponent of drug-sniffing dogs and suspicionless searches.

Iwamoto succeeded in removing language from the Chapter 19 recommendation that would have defined contraband to include cell phones, food, candy, gum and even rubber bands.

However, Iwamoto had also proposed striking language that would ban "consensual touching of body parts," saying the definition was overly broad and could lead to students being disciplined for holding hands or kissing.

In the end, the amendment failed, but at least one testifier claimed that principals have discriminated against lesbians and gay couples by disciplining them for public displays of affection.

Caroline Leyva, a social worker with Qelement, an organization that helps lesbian and gay youth, told board members an openly lesbian student was disciplined by an administrator for holding hands with her girlfriend. The girl, who was attending Waipahu Intermediate at the time, was told her displays of affection were out of the ordinary and inappropriate.

Despite warnings from the American Civil Liberties Union and experts of constitutional law, board members voted 11-1 in November 2007 to send the proposed changes out for public hearing.

Following extensive and lengthy consultation with the state attorney general's office, the board finally held public hearings on the Chapter 19 revisions in April and had scheduled a vote for yesterday.

Once the board makes a final decision, the new policy must be signed by Gov. Linda Lingle before it will take effect.