TEXAS DUEL - DRUG TESTS VERSUS STUDENT RIGHTS

Like thousands of schoolchildren nationwide, the sixth-graders in this
quiet town in the Texas panhandle are studying the US
Constitution.

And while they may be more interested in Billboard's Top 100 than the
Bill of Rights, that document has suddenly taken on deep resonance for
the students at Lockney Junior High School.

The dusty farming community has become the first school in America to
require drug testing for all its sixth-through 12th-graders. And in a
battle between community pragmatism and democratic idealism, a local
farmer has taken up a fight for the Fourth Amendment on behalf of his
son - filing suit to block the testing. The legal battle is being
closely watched by school boards across the US, who are trying to
decide how far they can go to rid classrooms of meth and marijuana.

"They are sitting up there telling [my son] that these are your
rights," says Larry Tannahill. "But then they're also sitting up there
telling him, 'But we're going to take them away.' "

In what some believe could become a test case for the US Supreme
Court, Mr. Tannahill, a fourth-generation farmer, filed a federal
lawsuit last month charging the policy infringed his son Brady's
Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search or seizure.

For their part, school officials say the drug-testing policy -
considered the most stringent in the country - allows students to be
educated in a safe, disciplined environment. No one is discriminated
against because all students and teachers must take the test,
officials add, and results remain confidential.

"It's a balancing act," says Austin, Texas, lawyer Don Henslee. "You
have to balance protection of the children with their Fourth Amendment
rights."

Mr. Henslee notes that in 1995, the Supreme Court upheld a
drug-testing policy aimed at student athletes in the Vernonia, Ore.,
school district. Two years ago, a Chicago federal appeals court upheld
mandatory testing of all students in an Indiana high school who
participated in extracurricular activities.

The seven-member school board adopted its policy in January, after
years of requests from parents to do something about the problem of
students showing up to class high, Henslee says. Those pleas took on
an air of urgency in 1998, when 12 of the town's 2,300 residents were
indicted on drug-related felonies. Though all were adults, some of the
suspects' customers were children.

"The parents were very concerned," Henslee says. "They asked the
school district to implement this policy."

In mid-January, roughly 400 students were sent home with consent forms
for their parents to sign. The form authorized the school to initially
test all students for drugs, then 10 percent of students selected
randomly each month. A refusal to sign the form, parents were told,
would garner the same punishment as failing to pass the test: a 21-day
suspension from extracurricular activities, three days in-school
suspension, and three sessions of substance-abuse counseling.

"It aggravated me quite a bit," Tannahill says. "I didn't think seven
people had the right to say what would happen with our children."

Sitting in his father's living room on the edge of Lockney, Tannahill,
a thin man with an easy smile, says widespread support for the
drug-testing policy has left him feeling somewhat ostracized.

In a town that has one stop light, no movie theater, and where the
biggest ticket in town is school sporting events, Tannahill says he's
become persona non grata for fighting the policy. Many community
members see the testing as a needed tool to help children avoid drugs,
and constitutional questions seem merely academic in the face of that
threat.

Indeed, several adults and children alike rolled their eyes when asked
one recent Saturday what they thought of Tannahill's stance. "He's
going against the whole town, and people don't have any respect for
him," says student Ashley Brock. "We just want to be proud that our
school is drug-free."

The mistaken belief that drug testing eliminates drug use is a
worrisome argument in favor of such policies, says Graham Boyd, head
of the ACLU's Drug Policy Litigation Project and one of Tannahill's
attorneys. "Studies show that the best way to keep students out of
trouble is to involve them in extracurricular activities," Mr. Boyd
says.

The policy in Lockney, he adds, is "unquestionably in violation of the
Constitution," yet it is certainly "planting ideas in the minds of
other school boards" nationwide.

That's especially true in Texas, says Henslee, whose law firm
represents about 300 school districts statewide. "To say that our
phones have been ringing off the hook is an understatement," he says.

Drug testing is one of the hottest topics among the 3,000 members of
the Virginia-based National School Boards Association, says Julie
Underwood, general counsel.

While the association has not taken a position on the Lockney policy,
Ms. Underwood says, "if I were a school district, I would be extremely
cautious of going this far."

Meanwhile, the school board has agreed not to punish Brady - who says
he's not at all bothered by the national attention his case has earned
- - until the court case is resolved. His father vows to take it as far
as he can.

"I hate to see what's going on here," says Tannahill, who was born and
raised in Lockney. "But if I give up now ... I'm not teaching my
children what the Constitution means."