MORE STUDENTS ARE FACING DRUG TESTING

Starting this school year, four students per week among those involved in
extracurricular activities at Fulton (Ill.) High School will take a drug test.

Every student at Alleman High School in Rock Island, as a condition of
enrollment in the parochial school, submits a hair sample sometime
throughout the school year to test for the drugs PCP, cocaine, ecstasy,
marijuana, opiates and methamphetamine.

United Township High School in East Moline is thinking of implementing a
drug-testing policy.

Half of the students at Orion (Ill.) High School stepped into a bathroom
remodeled just for drug testing purposes last year to take the test that an
increasing number of public and private Illinois high schools are implementing.

"It really has become really routine here," said Mike Nitzel, the principal
at Orion High School, which is entering its third year of drug testing for
students involved in non-graded extracurricular activities.

A precedent for drug testing students in extracurricular activities was set
when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a case involving a 12-year-old boy
from a logging community in Oregon.

James Acton, then a seventh-grader, went out for his school's football team
and was given a consent form for drug testing. James and his parents
decided not to sign, and he was not allowed on the team.

The case went to court. The local court ruled in favor of the school
district, but an appeals court reversed that ruling. The Supreme Court
ruled, on a split vote, in favor of the school district in June 1995.

Several cases have gone to court at the state level since then.

Ed Yohnka of the Illinois American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, said a
school district "ought to be very certain it has a reason to conduct drug
tests.

"There ought to be some compelling evidence instead of engaging in a random
law enforcement," he said. "I think there is a fundamental question here:
whether or not it is their job or the parents' job to determine whether the
children are engaged in elicit or illegal behavior. I won't defend people
who break the law, but I don't think schools were meant to be an adjunct to
the police department."

He also questioned whether school districts should be using taxpayer
dollars to conduct the tests.

The River Bend School District, of which Fulton High School is a part,
decided to look at a drug testing policy when officials became concerned
about the number of violations of its good conduct code, Principal Jerry
Klooster said.

The testing will start sometime in September.

"The community has been very supportive," he said.

If a student is found to be in violation in-season, they will be ineligible
for that season, Klooster said. If the activity is out-of-season, the
student will be ineligible for one-third of the following season.

There is another option, too.

"If a student is having a problem, they can come forward and as long as
they participate in a school-approved intervention program, they maintain
eligibility," he said.

At Alleman, part of the Catholic Diocese of Peoria, students must agree to
a random drug test sometime during the school year just to be allowed to
enroll there. The student also must pay the $50 fee for the hair test.
Employees are tested as well.

This is the second year for the program. Less than 1 percent of the
approximately 500 Alleman students tested positive for drugs last year,
Principal Colin Letendre said.

If a student does test positive for one of six drugs, the parents and
school chaplain are called. The student also must attend counseling sessions.

The school nurse did the testing, Letendre said, noting that the time
allowed students to ask a health question they may not have asked otherwise.

He believes it had another benefit.

"It helped some kids to say no," he added.

In Orion, no one has tested positively since the program was instituted,
Principal Nitzel said. The school tested 180 students last year at a cost
of $4,680, or $26 per test. The 268 students involved in non-graded
extracurricular activities, out of a total enrollment of 375 students, were
in the pool.

The tests happen on different days at different times of day, he said.

"The school board decided it wanted to take a more proactive approach with
the issue of drugs and alcohol rather than punishing students after they
have been found to be using them," he said. "This gives the kids another
reason to say no."