NELSON TESTING A MODEL FOR SCOTT

When the Nelson County Board of Education decided to implement a
random drug-testing policy for its students, it also included the
school board in the pool of potential subjects.

But Superintendent Dr. Janice O. Lantz had been subject to drug
tests for several years before the board approved the policy.

"I have my CDL (commercial driver's license) and I'm a bus driver,"
Lantz said. "I've been part of the rotation for several years."

Nelson County is one of the counties Scott County is studying as the
Scott school district is preparing to institute its drug-testing policy.

The Nelson experience, Lantz said, represented a group effort
between three different school systems.

"We met with the Bardstown independent schools and the parochial
schools and expressed concern about drug-testing athletes," Lantz
said. "Then we formed a steering committee with the two public
school superintendents, the head of the parochial school, Bethlehem
High School, the mayor, the judge-executive and some other key players."

That steering committee, Lantz said, met and talked about the
program "for about a year."

"We went to other places and looked at their policies and distilled
them and drafted our own," Lantz said. "Then all three school
systems passed the same policy."

The policy was passed in 2003. Lantz said the mayor and judge made
some donations to get the program started, and other funds came from
the schools' budgets.

"Then," she added, "as luck would have it a grant came along and we
applied for it together and were the recipient of a large amount of money."

The grant was one of eight pilot programs for student drug testing
from the United States Depart_ment of Education and was for $284,203.

The Nelson model began by looking at testing student-athletes but
expanded into also testing students in extracurricular activities
and those who held parking permits at the school.

"The first year we did high-school athletes," Lantz said. "Then we
added students in extracurricular activities the second year. The
third year we added drivers and middle school students in
extracurricular activities as well as new employees."

Now in its fifth year the program randomly tests students and employees.

"And it does include the school board and the superintendent," Lantz
said. "We had discussed the fact that we needed to be included in
the pool, and when we tested them, we did them all, not randomly,
because we wanted to see what it felt like."

What the drug testing found in Nelson County, Lantz said, was that
drugs were a problem at all schools.

"We found that each school had at least one individual that had
issues," Lantz said.

Students testing positive re_ceived a 21-day removal from their
sport, their extracurricular activity or their driver's privileges, she said.

"The students were not suspended from school," she said. "This is
intended to inform the parents of those issues. And if we found an
employee violation, we handled it as a disciplinary measure."

The program, Lantz said, is showing results.

Nelson County is a participant in the Kentucky Incentives for
Prevention program, a survey taken every two years in Ken_tucky
schools that monitors drug use by students.

Lantz said Nelson County's KIP results have shown that "in every
single area, in every single grade, drug use has gone down except
for tobacco."

But testing, she said, is not enough. Follow-up is critical, as well.

"There has to be a counseling piece to the puzzle too," Lantz said.

The hardest part of the process, she said, is passing the results on
to the parent if a student tests positive.

"The biggest piece in the puzzle is informing the parent," she said.
"That's when they are faced with the reality that their child has an issue."

The testing, Lantz said, has helped focus the community on drug use
by students.

"I don't say we've solved the problem," she said. "We have a drug
problem like everyone else. But we have made a dent in it, and we
feel like it is money well spent."