WYLIE SCHOOL'S DRUG-TESTING POLICY ALTERED

Board Votes To Include Band, Choir Students

Wylie school trustees decided Tuesday night to extend the district's new
random drug and alcohol testing policy to include students in band and choir.

Those two groups were not included two weeks ago, when trustees gave final
approval to the plan to randomly test junior high school and high school
students who participate in extracurricular activities. The revised plan
requires all students in grades seven through 12 involved in
extracurricular activities to undergo random testing.

School board President John M. Simmons said trustees decided to revisit the
issue Tuesday night after hearing from some parents of students in athletic
programs who complained that band and choir students were being given an
unfair exemption from the policy.

"We basically went back and looked at it," Mr. Simmons said.

The change means that 850 students at Wylie Junior High School and Wylie
High School will be affected, an increase of about 50 students. The testing
pool will not increase more dramatically because many of the band and choir
students are also involved in other extracurricular activities,
Superintendent H. John Fuller said.

Band and choir had previously been excluded from the policy because those
activities are not strictly extracurricular, Dr. Fuller said. Band and
choir students take classes in which their grades are based partly on their
participation in activities. Administrators did not want punishment under
the policy to jeopardize a student's grade.

"It was the administration being cautious," Mr. Simmons said. "They were
trying to do what was the best for the district."

Before Tuesday's meeting, discussions were held with other district staff
about how band and choir could be included in the testing program without
affecting their class requirements, Dr. Fuller said.

Under the revised policy, if a member of these groups tests positive and he
or she is suspended, arrangements will made so that the suspension will not
hurt the student's grade, he said.

"We're not going to take their grade from them," Dr. Fuller said.

Under the random drug-testing policy, a student with a confirmed positive
test will be referred for substance-abuse counseling and be suspended from
all extracurricular activities for 30 days, along with other consequences.
A second offense would result in a suspension from all extracurricular
activities for one calendar year.

Any positive results will remain on a student's record throughout his or
her secondary school career. A student who tested positive in junior high
would be slapped with the one-year suspension from all extracurricular
activities if he or she tested positive again in high school.

In addition to band and choir, the policy applies to participants in
student government, service clubs, athletics, performing groups, clubs or
societies devoted to specific study areas, and leisure-oriented clubs.

The policy calls for testing of entire groups when feasible. That had been
placed in the policy in response to concerns that the testing would
unfairly single out students.

Julie Schmader, a mother of a Wylie High student, said she still opposes
the testing of students because she does not believe that district
officials have proved that there is real drug problem.

"They're blowing this way out of proportion," she said.