BILLS BACK DRUG TESTING IN MIDDLE, HIGH SCHOOLS

TALLAHASSEE -- Jenny Watkin is president of Boca Raton High School's
student council and a member of the varsity soccer and bowling teams. She
has a GPA of 3.6 and is headed to Florida State University in the fall.

She says her active student life leaves no time for illegal drug use, yet
next year, students such as Watkin, 18, could find themselves being tested
if bills making their way through the Florida Legislature become law.

The bills (HB 113, SB 1838) would give school boards more power to require
drug testing of all middle- and high school students participating in any
extracurricular activity, whether it be the chess club or the varsity
football team.

The two proposals are finding mostly favorable responses among legislators,
who tentatively approved the House bill Tuesday. The matching Senate
version goes to the education committee today.

"This bill works on the fear factor," said the House bill's sponsor, Rep.
Ed Homan, R-Tampa. "It will discourage serious athletes who want to go to
college from doing drugs."

It is not the only drug-testing bill on the agenda this year. Another House
bill (HB 861) would require schools to test 5 percent of student athletes
for performance-enhancing drugs as a condition of membership in the Florida
High School Athletics Association.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Marcelo Llorente, R-Miami, has passed the
House's education committee but has no matching legislation in the Senate.

Some Palm Beach County students and educators said they have no problem
with the drug-testing bills.

"I don't think it's that big of a deal," Watkin said. "I think it would be
a deterrent."

But she said she doesn't see a widespread problem at her school.

Watkin's principal, Geoff McKee, also is not opposed to testing, even
though it would mean that 60 percent of his 1,800 students could face drug
testing because of their participation in extracurricular activities.

"I don't think drug use is a rampant problem, but if students have the
knowledge they could be tested, it gives them another reason not to
indulge," McKee said. "I don't want it to create a police environment, but
the added accountability could be good."

School boards already have the implied power to drug test, and at least six
Florida counties perform random testing on students, legislative staffers say.

The staffers didn't have specifics on which counties currently drug test.
But they don't include Palm Beach, Martin or St. Lucie counties, spokesmen
for those districts said.

The bill could give more confidence to school boards worried about
lawsuits, Homan said.

"I'm just saying 'Yes, you can do this,' " Homan said. "I'm trying to
lessen the concern of school districts that say it's a good idea but we
don't want to go to court over it."

That's exactly the concern of some administrators in Martin County.
Assistant Superintendent Hank Salzler said there are still too many legal
challenges and problems with student privacy rights for Martin to start
drug testing.

"We don't need to be the pioneer in the court challenge arena," he said.

A Senate analysis of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable
search and seizures, said that as long as the collection of urine or saliva
for drug testing is done randomly or in a "suspicious-less" manner, it is
considered reasonable and supported by the courts.

One of the challenges that could face Llorente's bill is that it targets
athletes and could be seen as less random than a bill that would cover all
extracurricular activities.

However, a House staff analysis of court records said that the U.S. Supreme
Court in 1995 did allow drug testing of athletes as long as the tests did
not look for other conditions such as illness or pregnancy and the results
were shared with a limited number of people.

Another concern for school districts is cost. Llorente's bill, which would
test students only for steroid use, could cost as much as $110 per test
because of the limited number of labs in the country that can test for
performance-enhancing drug use. Testing 5 percent of athletes statewide
could amount to $1.2 million a year. That amount is not included in the
House's proposed budget and school districts could wind up having to pick
up the cost on their own.

Homan's proposal that would test all extracurricular students for various
drug use would cost between $15 and $56 per test, a tab that would have to
be picked up by school districts.