BISHOP KELLEY TO START MANDATORY DRUG TESTING

All students at Bishop Kelley High School will be tested for drug
use beginning in the 2008-09 school year.

The school's advisory council and administration recently approved
the new policy that will use hair testing to reveal illegal drug use
by students.

The test identifies cocaine, marijuana, opiates, methamphetamine,
Ecstasy, Eve and phencyclidine, Principal Alan Weyland said.

"The sample of hair that we will be taking will give us a 90-day
history of activity in relation to use of a variety of drugs," Weyland said.

A $60 fee will be added to tuition costs to pay for the test, which
will be administered once during the fall to all students and
randomly throughout the rest of the school year, he said.

If a student tests positive for drugs, Weyland said only he and the
dean of students will know, and getting treatment for a substance
abuse problem will be the main response.

"We're not trying to catch anybody. If this is going to help you get
help, and if it's going to work to keep you off of something, then
all the better," Weyland said.

But if a student has a second positive test for drugs during four
years of high school, he or she will be asked to leave the school, he said.