DRUG TESTING: HOW ONE SCHOOL DOES IT

MARLBOROUGH - If a student uses drugs at Assabet Valley Regional Technical
High School, chances are it's no secret.

Teachers are trained to spot the red flags. They eavesdrop on
conversations between classes. Surveillance cameras hang in the
hallways. Police are called once or twice a year to question, and
sometimes arrest, students suspected of dealing drugs to classmates.

Assabet Valley is also one of the few public schools in Massachusetts
that regularly tests students suspected of using drugs. Those who test
positive or refuse to take the test are suspended until they can prove
they're clean. Now more traditional schools like Salem High are
preparing to approach the legal and ethical issues surrounding drug
testing. Salem School Superintendent Herbert Levine, in response to an
epidemic of heroin and OxyContin use among North Shore teens, has
established a task force to look at whether the high school should
begin randomly testing its students for drug use. The difference
between the Assabet Valley program and the one being discussed in
Salem is how students are selected for testing. Salem is looking at
random testing for athletes and students who participate in
extracurricular activities. Assabet Valley tests students identified
as possible users. The state Department of Education allows all high
schools to order drug tests "when there's reasonable suspicion," said
spokeswoman Heidi Perlman. That policy is based on federal case law
upholding schools' rights to search students where there is probable
cause to suspect wrongdoing. Armed with that permission, Assabet
Valley built a hard-line anti-drug program. When the School Committee
passed its policy in the early 1990s, there were few, if any, objections.

"Everyone agrees that when it's a technical school, where there are
minors working with millions of dollars worth of heavy equipment, this
is a safety measure," said Mark Hollick, the school's drug counselor
and dean of curriculum.

About two dozen of Assabet Valley's 1,100 students are tested each
year, Hollick said. Two out of three times the suspected student tests
positive. He estimates 75 to 80 percent of those students stop using
drugs before graduation.

And that's what has convinced Hollick that drug testing has benefits
that go beyond classroom safety.

"It lets us say to a kid who's 15, 'Let's not flush your life down the
drain,'" Hollick said. "Let's get you some help and get you back on
the right track. There are so many kids we've saved over the years. At
25 years old they come back, sometimes with a son or daughter, and
say, 'Thank God I got off drugs.'" Training is key Principal MaryJo
Nawrocki, who began her career as a health teacher at Assabet Valley,
has been at the school from the program's start. "For a drug testing
program to work, the students, teachers and parents have to be
educated about drugs and know what the rules are and agree with them,"
Nawrocki said.

Freshmen learn about specific drugs and their effects in health class,
and the training continues for the next three years.

Teachers get at least two training sessions a year on how to tell if a
student may be using drugs. They're also kept abreast of "popular"
substances by a program, free of cost for the schools, run through
the Middlesex County Sheriff's Office.

Last November, a sheriff's officer gave an after-school presentation
on the rising use of the pain-killer OxyContin among teens. He showed
slides of what the pills look like, and explained how they are abused
and also how to tell if a student is using them.

"They told us to look for students carrying pill-cutters," Hollick
said. "We would have never thought to look for that."

Teachers are instructed to watch for kids who start showing up late
for class; who change their clothing style, behavior and group of
friends; who are suddenly listless and disinterested; or those with
dilated or pin-sized pupils. Skin, too, can change hue when a person
is using drugs, Hollick said. If there doesn't seem to be a reason for
a student's unusual behavior, or if it continues longer than a week,
the teacher sends the student to the drug counselor for more
questioning.

Before school officials test a student, they get permission from
parents. If the parent won't give permission, the student is suspended
until he or she produces a negative test at the family's expense.

Nawrocki decides whether the student will be expelled or suspended
within 24 hours of receiving the test results and meeting with the
student and parents. First-time offenders can usually return to school
if they agree to attend treatment programs and show a negative drug
test, she said. Expulsion is more likely if a student is caught
dealing drugs. If school officials suspect students have large
quantities of drugs on campus, they call the police. "Every
circumstance is different," she said. "My policy is to be fair and
consistent with the students."

The school has partnerships with four local substance abuse centers
and eight counseling services that have agreed to provide services to
students who test positive at low or no cost.

Measuring success Hollick considers the school's anti-drug program
successful each time he helps a student kick an addiction. His most
recent triumph is a senior girl he helped to quit crack cocaine.

Normally bubbly and ambitious, she came back to school this fall gaunt
and disinterested.

"She had dropped 45 pounds in two months," Hollick said. "Her shop
teachers said they saw a huge change in her. She came late to school.
She quit her job at a nursing home.

"She came to my office and I said, 'Tell me what's going on and I'll
help you," Hollick said. The girl admitted to smoking crack cocaine
with her boyfriend, who had graduated the year before.

Her parents had no idea. "They were absolutely shocked when they heard
what was going on," he said. "It was like a $150- to $200-a-week
habit. She used money she had been given for clothes and school supplies."

She began attending a treatment program and has been drug-free since,
he said. She'll graduate on time with her class.

Not every intervention is successful. Another student, one Hollick has
lost touch with, had been smoking pot since fourth grade. And no
matter how hard the school tried to help him, the student couldn't
stop using drugs. He never returned to the school.

Students who have witnessed the program in action for several years
said they support it.

Ian Dunnigan, a junior, recalls a day last year, just two days before
graduation, when he saw police bring four of his classmates out of the
school in handcuffs. Teachers had learned they were selling pills
similar to Ritalin to fellow students, so school officials called
police to have the students arrested. Dunnigan, a metal fabrication
student, said he and his friends were shocked at the scene. But, he
said, if you're not using drugs, there's no reason to be scared. "Some
schools say they don't have kids who use drugs," Dunnigan said.
"They're just not trying hard enough."

He said his school's drug policies made him feel like administrators
"were doing something about the problem."

Another student, junior Sasha Gaulin, said she has friends who were
called in for testing but who didn't use drugs.

"They're not on it, but they get accused because maybe they hang out
with people who use drugs, or they look like they're on drugs," Gaulin
said. "It's like guilt by association."

Even so, she said she's glad the school has a tough program to keep
students off drugs. "I think it's good," she said. "You don't need
that stuff when you're young." Random vs. selective testing There is a
key difference between the program being proposed at Assabet Valley
and the one being discussed for Salem High. Salem is looking at
randomly testing students who play sports or are involved in
extracurricular activities. Assabet Valley hand-picks students they
see as suspicious. The difference is in both the ethical questions
surrounding drug testing and the cost involved.

Ethically speaking, the two procedures pose different questions. At
Assabet, the question is whether the school should have the right to
target certain students for testing. At schools like Salem High, or
Haverhill High, which is also talking about randomly testing students,
the question is whether students who show no signs of drug use should
be subject to testing. School officials and students in Salem are
split on that issue.

Mark Chludemski, a blacksmithing teacher at Assabet Valley for 12
years, said he supports his school's selective testing program, but he
would not support random testing of students.

"I'm wary that would erode individual rights," Chludemski said. "What
we do is explore help for kids who are having problems. We only test
when there's probable cause. It's just like the police."

Financially, Assabet Valley spends about $1,500 a year for drug
testing, with each test costing $60.

The cost could be significantly higher for random testing. Jerry
Luster, senior vice president of Calloway Drug Testing Laboratories,
said a school would have to administer three to five random tests per
day to be an effective deterrent, and more for students who need
follow-up tests. He said a particular student shouldn't be tested
more than two or three times a year. He put the estimated cost of
testing at around $50 a test. "With random testing, the point is you
never know when your number will be called to be tested. So you have
to test every day," Luster said. "For all you know, every day you come
to school, it could be your day."