AREA DRUG TESTING CATCHES ON

Before hundreds of students at Gladewater High School were allowed to
play a sport, join the band or participate in any other UIL
organization during the 2006-07 school year, they were given a
requirement they'd never had before: They had to pass a drug test.

While that practice is nothing new for a growing multitude of
students throughout the nation, Gladewater Independent School
District took a unique approach when implementing its policy by
requiring every student who wanted to join any UIL activity to pass a
drug test at the beginning of the year.

About 350 of the 550 high school students were given a packet
detailing the procedures and the consequences of testing positive,
also known as non-negative, for a drug. Students who agreed to the
rules were later called from class and had to report to the athletic
room for their testing. Throughout the rest of the year, about 25
students were randomly tested, as were any transfer students who
wanted to take part in an extracurricular activity.

The program's first year was a success, said Athletic Director Scott
Callaway, though he would not say how many students tested
non-negative. At $14 per drug test, the district spent about $5,250
of its general funds for the whole year.

It was money well spent, Callaway and Superintendent Mike Morrison say.

"It gives our kids a deterrent from the peer pressure of
experimenting," Callaway said. "It gives them an out."

"It's a good thing for our students," Morrison echoed. "They choose
to be in extracurricular activities. We want to represent our schools
and our community well."

Gladewater ISD's drug-testing policy comes years after Longview,
Spring Hill and Pine Tree ISDs began theirs.

According to officials from the respective districts, Spring Hill
began its program before 2000, Pine Tree's started around 2002 and
Longview's was implemented in 2004.

Spring Hill and Pine Tree school districts do their testing a little
differently than Gladewater and Longview school districts. Instead of
testing everyone beforehand, they randomly test a greater amount of
students throughout the school year. Because of costs, this is the
most common method, said an official with the National Federation of
State High School Associations.

Another difference is the testing range. Longview and Pine Tree
school districts test seventh- and eighth-graders in addition to high
schoolers, while Gladewater and Spring Hill ISDs limit it to high schoolers.

Athletic directors and trainers from each district say their programs
have been successful thus far, citing the "out" it gives students who
may otherwise be pressured into trying drugs. And officials from
every district stress the fact that the purpose of drug testing is
not to find and punish students using illegal drugs but to prevent it
from happening.

"We're not trying to catch anybody," said Pat Collins, director of
extracurricular activities for Longview ISD. "We're hoping that we're
going to have a clean slate (when we test)."

During the past school year, Longview ISD tested about 715 students.
Of that, six tested positive for marijuana and one for steroids, Collins said.

Steroid testing is separate from drug testing -- and at $125 a test,
about 10 times more expensive. Longview ISD is the only district of
the four that do it now, although if a bill currently before Gov.
Rick Perry becomes law, all Texas high schools will have to
administer state-funded steroid testing to athletes.

Longview is able to test all of its students involved in
extracurricular activities for drugs and steroids because of a grant
it has had since 2005 that covers its expenses, which ran to about
$109,000 this past year, Collins said. Spring Hill and Pine Tree
districts spend about $7,000 to $10,000 a year on their programs, and
like Gladewater, they pay for it from school funds. In all cases, the
student pays nothing.

Pine Tree and Spring Hill school districts rely on random tests to
keep students away from drugs. Spring Hill ISD tests about 40 or 50
students each month, while Pine Tree tests between 20 and 30 students
each cycle, and may test as many as three times a month.

The four districts have very similar punishments in place for
students who test positive for substances. The first offense
generally warrants a three-to four-week suspension from the
after-school activity, along with parental notification and mandatory
or suggested counseling. On the second offense, the suspension time
is doubled, as may be the time in counseling. The third time, a
student is suspended from the UIL activity for the rest of his or her
high school career.

It's fair punishment if you ask baseball player Nick Clifton, 17, who
recently graduated from Gladewater High School.

"It should be that way," Clifton said. "You shouldn't get an easy
punishment for what you do."

The new policy wasn't a big deal to him or to most of his peers, he
said, adding that he thought it was a good practice.

"I know it helped a lot of people that I know that are into (drugs
and alcohol)," Clifton said. "They stopped it and said, 'Hey, we
gotta focus on sports and not do all that because I want to play.' "