SCHOOLS WEIGH A DIFFERENT SORT OF TESTING

Andover and North Andover will join a growing number of communities
considering Gov. Mitt Romney's offer to pay for voluntary student drug
testing in public schools.

School committee members in both communities expressed reservations about
the aggressive approach to stemming the rise of drug use among
Massachusetts' urban and suburban youth, but said they would raise the
issue at public meetings in the coming months.

Under Romney's plan, unveiled earlier this month, the state would give
communities $100,000 for each school that participates in the drug-testing
program - $20,000 to pay for the testing and $80,000 for substance abuse
counseling. Districts would be allowed to decide how to design and
administer the testing program, but would be required to get parental
consent and to offer counseling or treatment for those who show positive
results. Test results would not be reported to authorities.

"I'm more than willing to explore any way of remedying the problem," said
North Andover School Committee Chairman Daniel J. Murphy. "But it's
important that we don't do anything that invades the privacy of students or
gets away from the concept of teaching kids responsibility .. Perhaps there
is a way to design a program that is remedial, not punitive or invasive."
In Andover, School Committee member Arthur Barber said he does not yet have
a position on testing in schools, but believes it should be considered. He
said that's partly because a survey showed alarming increases in drug use
among Andover's seventh-graders this year.

"We have to recognize that Andover schools are no different from other
communities' schools," he said. "We have our substance abuse problems and
that is just a sign of the times. This is a question that requires study
and I would suggest that we discuss the issue, and give parents and schools
the opportunity to weigh in."

The percentage of Andover seventh-graders who had tried inhalants more than
doubled, from 4.6 percent last year to 9.6 percent this year, the survey
found. The percentage who had tried heroin grew from 0.8 percent to 3.4
percent, mirroring a statewide trend that has pushed Massachusetts' heroin
use rate to among the highest in the country.

In 2002, nearly one in three Massachusetts youth between 12 and 17 reported
having been offered, sold or given an illegal drug on school property,
according to state statistics.

Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey said testing in high schools and middle schools would
deter students from experimenting with deadly drugs and prevent addiction.
The school drug test proposal is part of $9.1 million in drug prevention
spending that state lawmakers must approve in order to get $14.1 million in
federal money to combat substance abuse.

Salem School Superintendent Herbert Levine, who appeared with Healey when
she announced the plan two weeks ago, said a drug-testing program could be
implemented there as early as 2006. New Bedford is developing a
drug-testing program that could be in place by next school year and
Haverhill has created a task force to consider the testing.

But civil liberties advocates and some school leaders argue that the money
should be spent on educating children about the dangers of drugs and that
the drug tests would violate student privacy. Some also say government is
forcing schools to play too broad a role in solving social ills and
wondered whether $100,000 would cover the entire cost of the program.
"Where do we draw the line? It's random drug testing today, random DNA
testing tomorrow," Methuen Superintendent C. Phillip Littlefield said. "The
mission of our schools is the intellectual development of young minds. If a
parent is interested in having his or her child tested, I think the parent
should go ahead and do that."

Methuen School Committee member Robert F. Vogler said he has heard no
interest in the proposal and doubted school leaders would discuss it.
Deborah Silberstein, Andover School Committee chairwoman, said Romney's
school testing plan "was floated to be provocative" and raises more
questions than answers. She said she would explore the option if fellow
board members were interested.

"I'd question whether $100,000 is enough to cover all the administrative
costs," she said. "And I wonder if this is really part of education policy?
Can and should schools be used to solve all our social problems?" Scott W.
Wood, a member of both the Haverhill School Committee and the task force,
said keeping students off drugs is essential for schools to educate
children. Wood proposed a program that tests only students whom faculty
suspect are using drugs after getting parental consent. The task force will
offer its recommendation to school leaders in the fall.

"If parents consent and it's not totally random, I'm not sure that's an
invasion of privacy," he said.

In North Andover, School Committee member Charles C. Ormsby said he is open
to the idea as long as parents could choose whether to have their child
tested or not. "I'm not committed one way or the other," he said. "My guess
is that unless I heard a compelling argument from a civil liberties person,
I'd support it ... If I were a student and I knew there was a chance I'd
get tested and there were consequences, I probably would think twice about
taking drugs."