TESTING THE WATER

After a U.S. Supreme Court Decision, Many Area School Districts Examine
Their Drug Prevention Policies

Drug testing for high school students is a rather popular idea among
parents and school officials in the abstract. After all, a way to prevent,
or at least reduce, drug abuse can't be bad. But the reality brings forth a
slew of questions from cost to privacy and from accuracy to punishment.

Until recently, legal constraints against testing kept most school
districts from having to ponder these questions. But a U.S. Supreme Court
decision in June opened the door for more districts to initiate testing
programs and has prompted many Inland Southern California school districts
to re-examine their drug abuse prevention policies.

The ruling was something of a validation of the Fontana Unified School
District's random drug-testing policy. "I was glad, because I've always
felt we were doing the right thing," Fontana High principal Mike Demmer
said. "Anything that gives the students a chance to think about the
ramifications of their actions is a good thing."

The San Bernardino City Unified School District also tests for drugs, but
it tests only high school athletes. In the three-year-old Fontana program,
any high school student involved in extracurricular activities is subject
to random testing.

Both districts test for marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, PCP and opiates
(which includes heroin and many prescription pain killers). Representatives
at both districts said they feel the programs have been effective in
reducing drug use.

But other Inland Southern California public school districts have not yet
found drug testing to be affordable or practical, regardless of the Supreme
Court's ruling.

Still other districts, such as those in Lake Elsinore and Lake Arrowhead,
have been spurred by the ruling to re-examine the feasibility and
desirability of a testing program.

Some Renewed Interest

Ideas about drug testing at Inland area school districts vary widely from
district to district and even within each district. And the Supreme Court
ruling has only brought the differences into sharper contrast.

At the Corona-Norco Unified School District, the largest in Riverside
County, Superintendent Lee Pollard said he and his assistants discussed the
ruling and decided against a testing program because drugs do not seem to
be a serious problem among students in extracurricular activities.

"We're well aware that it's (drugs are) a problem that exists in every
community," Pollard said. "(But) we've found that kids who are actively
involved in our schools are less likely to be involved in drugs, rather
than more likely. . . .

"Just to automatically test a student just because they decide to
participate in extra-curricular activities would seem to be an infringement."

Ellen Garretson, superintendent of the Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified
School District, said police tell her the number of students using drugs in
her district is very small. So small, in fact, that it wouldn't justify the
five-to-six figure cost and effort of a drug-testing program. She said she
would support drug testing "if a serious need was apparent."

David Ochs, athletic director at Lake Arrowhead Rim of the World disagrees
with Garretson's stance.

"I think if you help one kid become corrected, then it's worth it," he said.

Ochs co-authored a report on drug testing for the district's superintendent
after meeting with San Bernardino City Unified School District officials.

"Anything takes money, that's the bottom line," Ochs said. "But I feel that
we are doing a disservice if we don't do anything. Kids need some guidance
in this area, and I think we can help them. . . .

"Reading is important, and so is this (curtailing drugs). There's got to be
a way to do both."

In Lake Elsinore, school board member Jeanine Martineau said the board has
asked Superintendent Sharron Lindsey to put together a task force to study
the drug-testing issue.

"We wanted to go out into the community and get more information,"
Martineau said.

At the Riverside Unified School District, assistant superintendent Bill
Ermert said the Supreme Court decision was a topic of conversation at a
recent meeting of Superintendent Susan Rainey and her seven assistants. But
he said no formal process to study the issue has begun.

"There has to be a groundswell of interest to start it," Ermert said.

Opinions also vary about what role punishment should play in a testing program.

Is notifying the student's parents and requiring counseling enough? Or
should a student found to have used drugs be barred from all
extracurricular activities for months, such as Fontana requires? What some
officials see as a vital deterrent, others see as a potential barrier in
developing open lines of communication between teens and adults.

Missing The Target?

Fontana's program has found only four positive tests in three years,
whereas the number of students in the district's substance abuse
intervention program in that period has been nearly 1,000. It would seem
that athletes and other students in extracurricular activities may not be
where the problem lies.

"Most of the 50 percent (who don't get tested) are the ones that need it
the most," said Chuck Pettersen, athletic director at San Bernardino
Pacific, which also has a testing program, but only for athletes.

"Why just athletes?" Pettersen asked rhetorically, acknowledging that
privacy laws don't allow an entire student body of a public school to be
tested. "If drugs are bad, then all students should be tested."

If the program is missing the target in who gets tested, are the tests
themselves also misleading? Some say the small number of positive tests
isn't a true reflection of drug use in athletic programs.

Tykie Harris, the 2001 state champion in the 800-meter run from San
Bernardino San Gorgonio, said that, as far as he knew, drugs weren't a
problem on the Spartans basketball team of which he was a part. But he said
he knew a few San Gorgonio football players who smoked marijuana and
worried, briefly, that a drug test might end their playing days.

"They knew stuff to do to get rid of it really quick," Harris said.

One technique was to drink massive amounts of water to flush traces of
drugs out of their systems. In addition, the athletes used over-the-counter
products ostensibly designed to clear toxins out of the body, Harris said.

"There were pills they could take," Harris said.

Tony Barile, the San Gorgonio football coach, said he knows his players
very well and is confident drug use is not prevalent on his team, but he
said that Harris' assertion is possible.

"I would love to say that 100 percent of the football team didn't do
them(drugs)," he said. "To say that nobody does it, I would be really blind."

Barile said the district's testing policy is a start. He said his own
anti-drug policy, which he said was very tough, is well-known by his players.

Even if the tests at Fontana and San Bernardino are accurate, they don't
test for the drugs ecstasy, LSD, steroids, or a host of other illegal or
dangerous substances that are being used by high school students.

The tests for these other drugs can be very expensive. A test for anabolic
steroids costs about $ 80, and a test for all abused substances could cost
more than $ 100, said David Herold of Addiction Medicine Consultants, which
works with the San Bernardino program. There are very few labs that run
steroid tests in the nation, and even finding a lab to test for all abused
substances would be extremely hard, said David Herold, who runs Addiction
Medicine Consultants, a company that helps with the random testing of
athletes for the San Bernardino City Unified School District.

But Herold added that, statistically, the basic panel stands the best
chance of finding drug abusers. And if they are using LSD, the probability
is high that they are using marijuana or amphetamines, he said.

Weighing the Cost

Money is a factor in many districts' drug policies.

The Fontana program costs less than $ 10,000 a year, said Cami Berry, a
Fontana administrator who runs that district's testing program. That figure
doesn't include the much more expensive counseling program.

Colton Joint Unified School District administrator Rick Dischinger said a
comprehensive testing and counseling program for Colton and Bloomington
high schools would cost about $ 100,000 a year, with less than $ 10,000
spent on the actual testing.

But Herold, whose company has been drug testing in the workplace since
1993, would, as one might expect, argue that the cost is worth it. He said
most adult drug users start in high school and that testing can help stop
drug use before it becomes drug addiction, but only if coupled with an
aggressive counseling program.

"Drug testing is not a magic bullet," he said.

Where They Stand

School districts and private schools throughout Inland Southern California
have been reassessing their drug-abuse prevention policies in the wake of
the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the legality of drug testing in
public high schools:

Riverside County School Districts Position on Random Testing

Alvord Unified - Considered, rejected in 1990's

Banning Unified - No policy, expect to discuss issue in future

Beaumont Unified - Informally studying

Coachella Valley Unified - Informally studying

Corona-Norco Unified - Informally considered, rejected

Desert Sands Unified - No policy*

Hemet Unified - No policy

Jurupa Unified - No policy

Lake Elsinore Unified - Formally studying

Moreno Valley Unified - No policy, may consider in future

Murrieta Valley Unified - No policy

Palm Springs Unified - No policy

Palo Verde Unified - No policy

Perris Union High - No policy

Riverside Unified - No policy, informally considered

San Jacinto Unified - No policy

Riverside Sherman Indian - Mandatory test upon reasonable suspicion

Temecula Valley Unified - Considered, rejected

Val Verde Unified - Informally studying

San Bernardino County School Districts

Bear Valley Unified - Policies under review

Colton Joint - Considered, rejected

Fontana Unified - Testing

Redlands Unified - No policy

Rialto Unified - No policy

Rim of the World Unified - Formally studying

San Bernardino City Unified - Testing athletes

Morongo Unified - No policy

Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified - No policy

Private Schools Bloomington Christian - Does not test

Desert Christian - Test upon suspicion

Temecula Linfield - Does not test

San Bernardino Aquinas - Randomly tests entire student body

Riverside Notre Dame - Randomly tests entire student body

Hemet Baptist Christian - Test upon suspicion

Woodcrest Christian - Does not test

Riverside La Sierra Academy - Test upon suspicion

* Mandatory test upon reasonable suspicion -Tests students who have
violated drug policies with parent's permission.