SCHOOLS DON'T PLAN ADDED DRUG TESTING

SPRINGDALE -- A U.S. Supreme Court ruling Thursday approving random drug
testing for many public high school students won't immediately affect those
in Northwest Arkansas, officials said.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in allowing an Oklahoma school district to
continue its policy of randomly testing students who participate in
extracurricular activities like choir, band and Future Farmers of America.

The move reaffirms some Arkansas school districts' current drug-testing
policies and allows other schools to adopt similar methods aimed at making
their students drug free.

The decision broadened the court's 1995 ruling -- Veronia School District
vs. Acton -- that allowed public schools to randomly test athletes. But
justices stopped short Thursday of saying it was constitutional to test all
students for drug use.

"We find that testing students who participate in extracurricular
activities is a reasonably effective means of addressing the school
district's legitimate concerns in preventing, deterring and detecting drug
use," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for himself, Chief Justice William H.
Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen Breyer.

The justices argued that schools' interest in ridding their campuses of
drug use outweighs an individual's right to privacy.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the dissenters, which included
herself and justices Sandra Day O'Connor, David Souter and John Paul Stephens.

"The particular testing program upheld [Thursday] is not reasonable, it is
capricious, even perverse," Ginsburg wrote.

Added Guidance

"We're happy to have the guidance," said Kristen Gould, staff attorney for
the Arkansas School Boards Association.

The association doesn't collect the statistics, but Gould estimated that at
least a third of the state's 310 public school districts now have policies
requiring some drug testing of student athletes and even other students.

Gov. Mike Huckabee said in a statement Thursday that he supported the policy.

"Participation in activities is a privilege and not a right," Huckabee
said. "So long as the testing does not discriminate on the basis of race,
color or other factors, students need not be reluctant considering the need
to insure a decrease in drug use among youth."

The decision changes little for the Arkansas Department of Education, said
Scott Smith, a department attorney.

"This is pretty much a local issue for the districts," he said.

The Arkansas Activities Association, the governing body for all school
extracurricular activities, doesn't have a policy on random drug testing,
executive director Jimmy Coats has said.

Drug-testing policies are left to school districts, he said.

The activities association proposed a plan a few years ago for random drug
and alcohol testing for students, but schools rejected the proposal, Coats
said.

Little Change Locally

The Springdale School District has been testing students since 1996 who
compete in sports, cheerleading or any activity in which they must take a
physical examination, said Hartzell Jones, deputy superintendent for personnel.

The Fayetteville School District has had a similar policy since 1998.

The Springdale district's policy probably won't change because of the
Supreme Court decision, Jones said.

"I would hope that it would be a decision based upon absolute need to do
so," Jones said. "If a district is having rampant drug problems, then yes,
they should [test]. But we're not at that point. I hope we don't get to
that point."

The Path Of Litigation

Arguments in the Oklahoma case were heard by the high court in March.

The Supreme Court ruled against Lindsay Earls, a former Oklahoma honor
student at Tecumseh High School, who sued the Board of Education of
Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County for making her
submit to a drug test.

The Tecumseh School District testing policy covered a range of voluntary
clubs and sports, including the Future Farmers of America, cheerleading and
football.

Earls is now a student at Dartmouth College.

In 1998, a similar suit occurred in Arkansas. Pathe Miller, a student at
Cave City High School, sued the Cave City School District for its drug
testing policy, which required drug testing for students to participate in
extracurricular activities.

But U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright rejected Miller's argument that
the policy was unconstitutional because it violated an individual's right
to privacy.

The Rogers district considered a similar policy in 1996 but didn't go as
far, said Charles Russell, an assistant superintendent who supervises
secondary education.

The only Rogers High students randomly tested for drugs are athletes,
cheerleaders and members of the drill team, Russell said.

The Rogers School Board never considered subjecting all extracurricular
activities to random testing, he said.

"I don't think we considered that to be an issue that we needed to work
around," he said. "The courts have always been hands off on extracurricular
activities. [Courts] pretty much have said that nobody is entitled to
participate in those programs."

Nobody in the district is pressuring Rogers to add more activities to
conduct random drug tests, he said.

Bentonville also tests its athletes, but Superintendent Gary Compton has
said he doesn't want to start subjecting students in all activities to drug
tests.

National statistics show illicit drug use among teen-agers has remained
stable the past five years. But the Bush administration backed the Tecumseh
district, as did a long list of organizations, including the Drug-Free
Schools Coalition and the National School Boards Association.