RANDOM DRUG-TEST POLICY PASSES

Program Would Target Students Involved In Sports, Clubs, As Well As Those
Who Drive To School

The Edmonson County School Board voted Monday night to implement a new drug
testing policy. The unanimous decision came after six months of discussion,
meetings with the board's attorney, two public forums and two readings of
the policy.

According to the terms, all students in middle and high school who are
involved in extracurricular activities, as well as those who drive to
school and park in the school's parking lot, are subject to random drug
tests. Each student and his or her parents would sign a consent form that
would allow the school to test that student if chosen.

The board had met with little resistance from the community until Monday's
meeting, when a handful of parents debated the effectiveness of the tests.

A recent University of Michigan study of 722 secondary schools across the
nation showed that testing of students does not deter drug use. The
researchers found that at each grade studied - eighth, 10th and 12th -
there were almost identical rates of drug use in the schools that had drug
testing and the schools that did not.

Rhoda Webb, an Edmonson County parent, cited the study, along with others,
in an attempt to persuade the board to rethink the policy. She had a list
of 95 signatures on a petition asking the board to reconsider.

The issue has become so controversial in Edmonson County that only one
local store owner would allow Webb to display the petition for people to
sign, she said.

Webb, who has an 8-year-old daughter, said she'd like the board to consider
a more educational approach to the problem.

While the elementary school will soon begin offering a Drug Abuse
Resistance Education program and the middle school offers life-skills
classes, some in the audience asked what was being done at the high school.

Scott Skaggs, a Kentucky State Police trooper who has a son at Edmonson
County High School, spoke out strongly in favor of the drug testing policy.

"I've heard that we need to teach high school students about drugs," he
said. "They can teach us about drugs."

The tests will be given to about 320 students a year. They will be given by
outside agencies and no school personnel will be involved in the tests.
Student athletes can be tested even after their particular seasons are over.

The tests would cost "in the neighborhood of $10,000," according to
Superintendent Darrell Cassady. The high school may also have to issue
parking passes to monitor who is driving to school.

Employees of a yet-to-be-chosen group would show up without students'
warning and conduct the tests, board Chairman Tommy Ritter said.

"Your kid's liable to get pulled three times and mine never get pulled, but
that's random," he said at last month's meeting. "If you do anything else,
it's not fair."

Many of the members of the board have children in Edmonson County schools
who could be subjected to the tests.

Board member Steve Gibson said his daughter is involved in extracurricular
activities, and while he doesn't suspect she is using drugs, he would be
wearing rose-colored glasses if he had said for sure that she wasn't.

"If she is, I hope her name is the first one pulled for the test," he said.