DRUG TESTS PLANNED AT WHITE OAK

White Oak Independent School District plans to spend $14,800 to drug test
1,059 students during the course of the next year in an effort to give more
than "lip service" to their claim of having drug free campuses.

Superintendent Dr. Richard Montgomery said at a Board of Trustees meeting
Monday night that the society within the school can't help to reflect the
society the school exists in, but with a new emphasis on drug testing,
administration will be able to make their campuses a safer environment.

"We don't make air conditioners and we don't make oil. We make people,"
Montgomery said.

The school board is considering some changes in their drug policy. They
will not only allow dogs to sniff for drugs in student's lockers, but they
will reserve the right to search lockers if they have probable cause
because the lockers are school property. Montgomery pointed out that
students may not be sniffed by the dogs, however.

Just last week, two teen-agers at White Oak High School were caught with a
bottle of codeine cough syrup.

"They were sent to the principals office because they appeared to be under
the influence of something," Montgomery said. Principal Sigrid Yeats said
the students weren't searched but that upon request they produced an empty
bottle of codeine willingly. The students said they poured the syrup out.
According to Rolling Stone Magazine, codeine is gaining popularity as the
drug of choice at clubs in Austin and Houston and is nicknamed "Syrup."

Montgomery said they won't test for drugs to condemn the students but to
turn them into productive people. White Oak's policy is a four-strike
policy where students could test positive up to four times before they
would be expelled.

"The spirit of our drug policy is to help students. We will never give up
on the kids," Montgomery said.

Tom Thompson of THE Lab was at the meeting to explain how drug testing
works. He said that a student could legally pass a drug test but still have
levels of a certain drug in their system, which would suggest prior drug
use. He said that drug tests can also detect "flushing" of the system with
fluids and herb remedies to cleanse the body of the chemical. If the
student showed traces but passed the test legally, Thompson suggested that
it would be unwise to set sanctions against those students.

Trustee Ronald Smith suggested at the meeting that if there were traces
present in the students drug test report, administration should notify
their parents that the traces were found.