DRUG TESTING MIGHT EXPAND

Shasta Union High District Board May Include All Extracurricular Activities

High school officials know it's just as easy for the first chair
violinist to drink on the weekend as it is for the star
quarterback.

So the Shasta Union High School District board of trustees will talk
Tuesday about expanding the random drug-testing policy from just
sports to all extracurricular activities. Currently, every Monday
morning the district tests randomly selected athletes for drugs.

Trustees will discuss the advantages and disadvantages to expanding
the policy to other after-school programs.

Superintendent Mike Stuart said the way it now stands, if an athlete
tests positive for drug use, that athlete can't play in that weekend's
game.

"If the lead in a play or musical gets caught, they can perform,"
Stuart said.

Stuart said the board "doesn't have an agenda" to institute the policy
for extracurricular programs, but it is interested in looking at the
evenhandedness of the current policy.

"I think there is some interest in talking about what's fair," he
said.

Trustee Kristen Schreder said students who participate in music, drama
or other extracurricular activities work just as hard as athletes and
should be held to the same standards and expectations.

"We want kids to be participating," she said.

So it's important the district deal with the different groups equally,
she said.

She plans to wait to hear how the discussion goes Tuesday, but said
right now she believes all the students who participate in
school-sanctioned activities should be tested.

The desire to understand the policy better spurred the inclusion of
the discussion on Tuesday's agenda, she added.

"We thought it would be good to see how it would work," she
said.

Schreder, who's new on the board this year, said that before the
drug-testing discussion was added to the agenda, she assumed all the
students participating in after-school programs were being tested.

The district has been drug-testing athletes for eight years. For many,
it's been a deterrent against drug use, giving athletes a ready excuse
to turn down a beer or a joint, Stuart said.

"We know we're not going to stop every single kid, every athlete," he
said. "(But) it gives them an excuse to say no.'"

Whichever way the discussion turns, the board will not make a decision
Tuesday. However, both Schreder and Stuart hope talking about it will
give trustees and administrators a better idea of what direction to
move.

"It's good that we're taking a look at it," Schreder said.