STUDENTS AT KELLEY FACE 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, which will use hair testing to detect illegal drug
use by students.

Principal Alan Weyland said the policy was more than two years in the making.

"This is not something that was done overnight," he said. "I believe
the longer we keep kids from using drugs, the better off they're
going to be in their adult life."

The test identifies cocaine, marijuana, opiates, methamphetamine,
Ecstasy, Eve and phencyclidine, he 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.

Tuition will be raised by $60 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.

The policy is not in response to a problem specific to Bishop Kelley,
but to a larger societal issue, he said.

"There is not a high school in this county that doesn't have
adolescents with these issues," he said.

Kelli Fitzpatrick, a senior at Bishop Kelley, said she was not
against schoolwide testing.

"I thought it was a little drastic to test every student, but if they
think it's going to help out. . . . I don't think Kelley has as big a
drug problem as it does alcohol, so I don't really know if it's going
to be that effective," she said.

Mary Brennan, a drug and alcohol educator at the school, said testing
for alcohol is done at special school events, but it is not possible
to do a longer-term test for alcohol use.

Alcohol education is highlighted during students' sophomore year and
is included in Brennan's substance abuse education programs for all
students, she said.

"I tell parents that actually, the World Health OrganizaBalance =
30.0 pts tion considers alcohol to be the most dangerous drug,"
Brennan said. "We're really fighting -- it's really a communitywide,
systemic problem."

Weyland said that only he and the dean of students will know which
students test positive for drugs and that 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," he said.

But students who have a second positive test for drug use during four
years of high school will be asked to leave the school, he said.

Amy Connor, a parent at the school, supports the policy, she said.

"I figure that they have done quite a bit of research to make sure
that this is the good and right thing to do," she said. "I don't have
any strong objections to it."

David Cox, a senior, called the test a necessary evil.

"It's just something that students are going to have to deal with. .
. . Any student that plays by the rules shouldn't have to worry about
it," he said.