RAYTOWN SCHOOL DISTRICT CONSIDERS RANDOM DRUG TESTS

About one in four public school districts across Missouri has adopted
random student drug-testing policies.

Many of those districts serve families living in rural
areas.

But the first such policy at an urban Kansas City area district could
be on its way. Tonight, officials with the Raytown School District are
sponsoring a forum for parents and students to discuss whether a
random drug-testing policy should be approved for Raytown and Raytown
South high schools.

Superintendent Allan Markley believes having one at least deserves
consideration, as it could give students a good excuse to resist peer
pressure.

"I'm a big believer that if we have one student using drugs, that is
one student too many," Markley said.

No one particular incident has prompted the district's interest in
testing, he says.

Still, more than 23 percent of Raytown 10th-graders acknowledged last
year that they had tried marijuana at least once, compared with about
16 percent of 10th-graders statewide.

Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have upheld the right of school
districts to test students who participate in athletics or
extracurricular activities. But critics maintain it's troubling for
districts already under financial pressure to take on the cost of
random testing for students who largely may not be the troublemaking
type.

The annual cost of the program in Raytown, according to district
estimates, could approach $25,000.

"In times of fiscal stress, these policies make no sense," said Doug
Bonney, chief counsel and legal director of the American Civil
Liberties Union of Kansas and Western Missouri.

"They don't advance the ball, because the students who are involved in
extracurriculars are the engaged students who are the least likely to
be doing drugs.

"It's foolish."

Of the 198 districts affiliated with the Missouri School Boards'
Association, 50 have adopted drug-testing policies.

In the Kansas City area, the Oak Grove School District adopted the
practice starting with the 2007-2008 school year. Officials at
Archbishop O'Hara High School in south Kansas City started it the next
year.

Officials at Oak Grove and O'Hara insist that the program's value is
in prevention, not punitive action.

At Oak Grove, students in ninth through 12th grades who participate in
sports or extracurricular activities -- or who park a car on campus --
are subject to the random tests.

Principal Randy McClain said the main initial concerns of parents were
discretion and confidentiality.

But, he added, a premium is put on both at Oak Grove.

The names of students randomly selected to be tested are not
announced, he said.

Rather, students are pulled discreetly from classrooms or hallways and
taken to a private restroom. That's where a representative of the
testing service, accompanied by the school activities director,
collects the sample while remaining at a discreet distance but still
near enough to protect the integrity of the test.

"They allow the students to wash their hands and flush the stool, and
the student goes back to class," McClain said.

Since the program's introduction, only a few students have tested
positive, he said.

If a sample comes back positive for any of a specific list of
substances -- including amphetamines, cocaine, opiates or THC, the
active ingredient in marijuana -- a process begins involving the
student, parents and school officials.

Students testing positive for the first time are not allowed to
participate for 28 days in their sport or extracurricular activity. If
they choose to participate in an approved rehabilitation program, that
period is cut in half.

McClain, a 31-year veteran of the Oak Grove district, described how
one student inadvertently demonstrated the program's deterrent value.

"He said, 'You don't test during the summer,'" McClain said.
"Those were his exact words. Then I realized that -- for at least that
student -- the testing during the school year served as a significant
deterrent."

The service tests about 15 Oak Grove High students each month during
the school year.

For the most part, Oak Grove students haven't complained, said senior
Rachel Kilmer, Oak Grove High's student body president.

"We don't mind the drug testing because it proves that Oak Grove High
students do not fit into that social norm that holds that all
teenagers are involved in drugs," Kilmer said. "We like to hold
ourselves to a higher standard."

Kilmer has been selected once for the random drug test and said it was
completed in a professional manner.

"I was out of class for about 15 minutes," she said. "It was not a big
deal."

At O'Hara, random drug testing is mandated for all of its
approximately 400 students. Students who test positive the first time
are asked to enroll in a drug-alcohol counseling program. There is no
suspension or missed work, said Alan Hull, O'Hara activities director.

Then they are retested.

Hull estimates that only a "very few" students have tested
positive.

"We are talking single digits," he said.

As about 90 percent of O'Hara students are involved with athletics or
extracurriculars, school officials just mandate testing for the entire
student body, Hull said.

But that's where such testing may lose its common-sense value, said
Bonney of the local ACLU.

In a 1995 case, Vernonia v. Acton, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
the Fourth Amendment permitted a school policy that prevented students
from participating in interscholastic sports unless they agreed to
random drug testing.

Later, in a 2002 case, the court extended Vernonia to allow districts
to test participants in extracurricular activities.

Since those decisions, Bonney said, a number of mostly rural school
districts in Missouri and Kansas have adopted such policies.

Not everyone is happy about it, he added.

"Interestingly, I receive complaints about these policies from
outraged parents who object to the policies on the grounds that their
kids don't do drugs and should have the same rights as adults," Bonney
said.

Mickey Moore, president of Employee Screening Services, the
Springfield, Mo.,-based firm that provides the service for Oak Grove
and O'Hara, said the Supreme Court rulings supported the result the
school districts were trying to achieve, which was preventing student
drug use.

"If anybody looks to these programs as an opportunity to 'catch kids,'
then they are missing the point," he added.

According to one recent accounting from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, around 7 percent of public and private middle
and high schools nationwide conducted some form of random student drug
testing.

Though the Kansas Association of School Boards doesn't maintain a
formal count, 10 to 15 Kansas districts test their athletes, said
Donna Whiteman, assistant executive director for legal services.

However, she added, given the cost of the testing, some district
officials may be reconsidering the programs.

Markley grew familiar with such testing as superintendent at the
Logan-Rogersville School District in Rogersville, Mo., near
Springfield.

He believes rural families may be more comfortable.

"There are going to be those who may have a greater interest in
privacy rights," he said. "But I think a lot of people in the Midwest
tend to lean toward the greater good, particularly when it comes to
our youth."

If a Raytown district citizens advisory committee recommends such a
policy to the Board of Education, the board would consider it, perhaps
this fall.

"We felt that our athletes and kids participating in extracurriculars
were needing something more than 'Just Say No,' which doesn't seem to
be effective anymore," said Bob Glasgow, Raytown activities director,
who played a role in putting the program in place in the Oak Grove
district.

"The point is to give a kid, on a Friday or Saturday night, the
opportunity to say, 'No.'"