EP HIGH APPROVES RANDOM DRUG TESTS

All Students Involved In Extracurricular Activities To Be Subject To Screenings

EAST PEORIA - Local high school officials will send a message this
summer to the school's students: If you plan to join the chess club,
be prepared to take a drug test.

The same goes for football players, cheerleaders and every other East
Peoria Community High School student who will participate in any
extracurricular activity beginning with the 2006-07 school year.

The school will use saliva strips to test for the presence of alcohol
and urine tests to screen for illegal drugs on a random basis "as a
deterrent" and to nip "some increases" in drug and alcohol use among
the school's nearly 1,300 students, District 309 Board President
Garth Knobeloch said Tuesday.

That increase is no greater than at other area schools in general,
and no specific cases of abuse prompted the board's 4-3 vote Monday
night to institute the new policy, Knobeloch said. "We just hope this
is the method to contain it."

Besides Farmington High School, no other public high school district
in the Peoria area is among the estimated 30 in the state to have
such a policy, said District 309 Superintendent Cliff Cobert.

In Peoria, District 150 students are tested for drugs "only if
there's probable cause" based on a student's condition and behavior
on school grounds, said District 150 spokeswoman Stephanie Tate.
"We'd have to have a pretty good idea" before requiring a test, she said.

The close board vote only reflected some board members' reluctance to
put the policy in place before all of its details are worked out,
said Knobeloch and board member Andy Paulson.

Still undetermined is what percentage of students in activities will
be tested and how they'll be selected, Cobert said. The selection
process, however, "will be purely random," he said.

No students testing positive for either drugs - including marijuana,
amphetamines and unauthorized prescription drugs - or alcohol will be
subject to school suspension or expulsion, nor will they face legal
problems, Knobeloch said.

First-time violators, however, will lose one-quarter of a season's
eligibility in all extracurricular activities over a 12-month period.
Subsequent violations will raise the punishment to a half, three
quarters and a full season over 12 months, Paulson said. About 500
students participate in extracurricular activities each year, Cobert said.

"The (students') coaches and parents are really the ones who
instigated the policy," he said.

They brought the idea to the board's Disciplinary Committee, which
spent several months considering it before presenting the general
policy to the board Monday.

Paulson said the policy allows a student on a school team or club "to
come forward and say he has a problem with something" before he or
she is selected for testing.

The student, like those testing positive, then will be referred to
agencies geared to helping end abuse and may still be allowed to
participate in activities, "but he can't suddenly get religion when
he's handed the (urine sample) bottle," Paulson said.