TASK FORCE - DRUG TESTING WILL REDUCE PEER PRESSURE

Parents Can Have Input At PTSA Meetings Through April

ROYAL OAK - Becca Castle, an eighth-grader at Royal Oak Middle
School, will sign up for voluntary drug testing when the district
offers it in the fall.

"I couldn't care less. I've got nothing to worry about," Castle said,
"but I've seen some girls getting nervous. That makes me think random
tests are a good idea."

The school board plans to implement random drug testing at the start
of the next school year for sixth-through 12th-graders who
voluntarily sign a registration form with their parents indicating
they want to participate.

The board isn't scheduled to vote on the program until its May 8 or 22
meeting, but President Gary Briggs told the Save Our Youth Task Force
on Tuesday the support is there. Briggs said he doesn't want to waste
any time in educating the community about a program considered a
proven way to help children say no to drugs.

Castle said it will be easier for her to ignore peer pressure about
drugs if she can point to the random testing.

"It will be like a good excuse," Castle said. "You won't feel stupid
to say, 'Hey, I signed the contract. I can't do drugs. I could get
busted tomorrow.'"

Peer pressure is the primary reason middle and high school students
try drugs and often get hooked, according to Jack Salter, a task force
member who works with youth on probation at the 44th District Court.

"I'd say 99 percent of it is peer pressure," Salter said. "We need to
stop the peer pressure."

The tests will screen for 10 different groups of drugs, including
prescription painkillers in urine samples of the randomly selected
students. The results will be kept confidential. They will be returned
to parents only and never to school officials or police.

If a test comes back negative, parents will get a postcard in the
mail. If a test comes back positive, parents will get a phone call
from the drug testing agency and the specimen will be checked again to
determine volume and frequency of drug use.

Parents who get bad news and want to take action will be given
information about counseling and treatment programs in the area.

The registration forms will go out in the fall. Parents and students
who want to opt out still must sign the document, but they can mark a
box declining to participate.

Either way, the simple task of signing the forms will start a dialogue
about drug use between parents and students, according to advocates.
That's another benefit of the program, said Becca's mother, Janie
Castle, who also plans to sign the form. She said the issue already
has been the topic of family discussions.

"I walk a fine line trying to respect my children's privacy, but
unfortunately this is the world we live in," Janie Castle said. "They
obviously are feeling pressure and we've got to nip it early."

Superintendent Thomas Moline, who also belongs to the task force, said
district officials will be seeking more input from parents through
PTSA meetings until the end of April. The middle school PTSA meets at
7 p.m. next Monday and the high school association at 7 p.m. March
31.

In the meantime, Royal Oak High School students who support the effort
will look at ways to roll out the program to their classmates with
presentations to small groups.

"It will be a lot more effective than me talking about why it's
important to 1,800 students at once," Michael Greening, ROHS
principal, said.

He added students who will make the presentations are committed to the
program.

"I wouldn't say they are excited about it," Greening added. "They just
seem matter of fact about it."

Students at San Clemente High School in California have been dealing
with similar registration forms and drug tests since 2001, when the
program Royal Oak is implementing started out as the Capistrano
Unified School District's Voluntary Drug Testing Program.

San Clemente High School administrators polled 900 students about the
program in 2005. Forty percent of freshman and 26 percent of all
students used their participation to say no to drugs, according to the
American School Board Journal.

Another 17 percent of students who didn't enroll in the program said
they still pointed to it when declining drug offers and 15 percent of
students said they stopped using drugs after signing the registration
form with their parents.

Now in its seventh year, the program has spread to high schools in
other states and has an endorsement from the White House Office of
Drug Control and Policy.

Word of its success prompted Royal Oak school officials to key in on
it.

At Royal Oak Middle School, parents and teachers will explain the
program to students after they become familiar with it.

"For this age group we need adults involved," ROMS counselor Michael
Betman said.

The drug tests are expected to cost about $40 per student. The task
force hasn't figured out how they will pay for the tests. They may ask
parents or the school district to cover the expense or seek business
sponsors.

Save Our Youth members began meeting two years ago in response to
three 2005 heroin-related teen deaths in Royal Oak, Birmingham and
Madison Heights and a marked increase in non-fatal overdoses
recognized by the Royal Oak Fire Department.

At the end of 2005 and in early 2006, firefighters responded to 17
drug overdoses in a two-month period in Royal Oak. Ten emergency runs
were for heroin overdoses and six of those runs involved teens.
Firefighters sounded the alarm about the problem and the task force
formed soon afterward.

Since then, Fire Chief Wil White, another task force member, said his
department has responded to fewer teen drug overdoses.

"The 19-and-under bracket is really reduced, almost nonexistent,"
White said.

Task force members have made Royal Oak a safer community, according to
Moline. He lauded their latest plan to deal with drug use saying, "You
won't let it rear its ugly head again."