DISTRICTS WEIGH DRUG TESTING

It's no mystery high school students experiment with drugs and
alcohol. But Salem County School Boards Association President John
Smith says high schools can take a more active stance to deter
students from experimenting by instituting random drug and alcohol
tests for students involved in extra curricular activities.

Smith hosted a program attended by representatives from each school
district, detailing a new drug and alcohol testing policy that would
randomly select students involved in extra curricular activities for
testing.

The computer generated program would randomly pick 10 to 20 percent of
students involved in extra curricular activities a year for a urine
analysis test. If a foreign substance is found in the completed test,
the sample would be sent to a lab for further testing to find the
illegal substance.

"It's an educational tool. We are the surrogate parents in the world
of education," he said. "We have to be responsible for the growth of
our students while they're in our educational system."

The tests, he said, would be mainly for educational purposes and would
serve as a tool to alert parents of their children's activities.

"This program would not be a punishment program. We're not violating
any student's rights," he said. "There could be counseling and mentor
programs established if we find we have a problem in the school
district's. We need to stress the importance of being drug free to our
students. It's a way to ensure that we nip this problem in the bud
before it becomes an issue."

Currently, school districts in Salem County only have one drug test
for their students mandated by the State of New Jersey. If a school
athletic team reaches the state championship in any sport, the team
must submit to a urine analysis to test for steroid abuse.

This, Smith said, is not enough to deter students from succumbing to
the temptations of drugs or alcohol.

"If this program is brought into the districts, students would be
conscious that they might be selected for a test and that would be a
major deterrent," he said. "The students would have to respect the
tests."

Test kits would cost about $8 a piece for the schools, and about $40 a
piece if the kit had to be sent to a lab for testing. Smith said
school districts would only have to test about 100 students in an
entire year.

"It's not a cost issue at all, though many people tend to think it
is," Smith said.

The Penns Grove-Carneys Point Regional School District, he said,
showed the most interest in the program and was looking more carefully
at installing it in the school district.

Penns Grove Superintendent Dr. Joseph Massare could not be reached for
comment on Friday.

The program doesn't seem to hold much interest for districts that
don't serve high school students. Lower Alloway Creek District Chief
School Administrator Fred Pratta said a program like this isn't
attractive for his district because it only serves students from
kindergarten through eighth grade.

"Of course, if we ever suspected one of our students for drug use they
would be tested immediately," he said. "But currently we don't feel we
have a need for an extensive program."

The Woodstown-Pilesgrove School District, which serves all grades,
expressed interest in the program. Superintendent Robert Bumpus said
the board of education would continue to look at testing options, and
if a decision was made in favor of the testing program it would be
initiated in the 2008-2009 school year.

"We need time to look at the options and see if this is a viable
program for our district," he said. "For some districts it works out,
for other it doesn't. We need to look at research, surveys, and data
so see if this program really does work."