School uses lie detector in discipline cases

DUNLAP, Ill. -- As is the case in many small towns, the highway leading into Dunlap is decorated with a few wooden signs supporting the high school and its athletic teams.

But even with the Dunlap Eagles in the football playoffs for the first time since 1994, the excitement is being overshadowed by a discipline problem involving players suspended for attending a party at which alcohol was served. In an unusual twist, the school district used lie detector tests to prove some of them were there.

"You would think they have better things to do," Mark Wade, a 1979 Dunlap High graduate, said of school officials.

Schools superintendent Bill Collier said that's not the issue. All the suspected athletes were reported by police as attending the Oct. 6 party, although many claimed they left as soon as they realized alcohol was present.

Collier, who admits getting in trouble for similar reasons when he was a teen-ager, noted that three athletes accused of attending the party were cleared -- impossible without the polygraph, which had never been used to enforce the school's conduct code.

"For these three kids, this worked exactly the way it is supposed to work," he said. "It may look bad, it may sound bad, but it's the fairest way."

10 took polygraph

Like most Illinois public schools, Dunlap has a policy regarding alcohol, tobacco and drug use that must be signed by anyone participating in extracurricular activities. Violations are punishable by suspension from competition.

Initially, 15 athletes were accused of attending the party. Three admitted guilt; two more were suspended after refusing to take the polygraph. Seven of the 10 who took the test failed and were barred from competition.

Peoria County deputies raided the party and the names of students who were present, as well as some who had left their cars there, were forwarded to the school in a police report. Many of the accused proclaimed innocence; their parents hired an attorney.

"Everybody likes our policy until their child is caught," Collier said.

Attorney Matt Jones, who represents the accused students and their parents, helped supervise the polygraph sessions. Collier described the scene as sad, with some parents shedding tears as they realized their children had lied to them as well as the school.

Jones said a lawsuit challenging the suspensions is unlikely but parents may try to pressure the school board into changing the policy.

"With most of them, it's not about their participation but because they let down their team," he said.

On a recent afternoon at Christie's Place, the town's tavern, Wade said the drinking policy existed when he was in high school and athletes and others were sometimes questioned about their weekend activities. He said their answers were accepted -- sometimes the answers were lies -- but nobody would have given teen-agers a polygraph exam.

"That wouldn't have washed. The parents wouldn't have stood for it," said Wade, who admits violating the policy in his day.