SCHOOLS DISCUSSING DRUG TESTING

Some Bibb County Educators Say Random Tests May Give Students Excuse Not To
Try Drugs

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision Thursday to expand a school district's
right to test specific students for drugs may provide another way for local
school systems to combat pervasive drug use among teens, some educators and
law enforcement officers say.

Until now, court rulings had approved public schools administering random
drug tests only to athletes. Thursday's ruling expands that approval to
students in other extracurricular activities, such as band, quiz bowl teams
and drama competitions.

Few if any Middle Georgia public schools have tested their athletes, but a
growing number of educators are discussing and doing it.

"Society isn't taking care of (youth drug use), and individual schools are
going to have to do something about it," said Barney Hester, headmaster of
Tattnall Square Academy, one of two private schools in Bibb County that
began randomly testing their middle and high school students this year.

"We're doing it as a way to hopefully give our students an out," or an
excuse to refuse peer pressure, he said.

Middle Georgia law enforcement officers say they have seen an increasing
use of methamphetamines and the club drug Ecstasy, and continued and more
pervasive use of higher-THC-content marijuana. Crack cocaine, which
officers say was the most popular hard drug among Macon students a few
years ago, now shares that title with Ecstasy and methamphetamine, they say.

"It's not unusual to find a bunch of teen-agers in any given weekend doing
drugs in the parking lots of your local movie theaters," said Bibb County
sheriff's Capt. Lynn Eason, commander of the Middle Georgia Drug Task Force.

A former Bibb County private and public school student and former heavy
drug user said he has seen Tattnall's policy scare some students out of
using drugs.

"I do know some people who do drugs occasionally," he said. "It has
affected them, especially this one girl I know. She didn't do anything the
whole year."

Others, however, have just kept using, he said.

Bibb County public and private educators say most of drug use occurs off
campus, at night and on weekends.

"Kids just seem to be dabbling more and more these days," said Sister Mary
Rosina, soon-to-be-retired principal and president of Mount de Sales
Academy, a Catholic school in Macon. "I just think it's getting worse."

Should that be the responsibility of the schools?

Several private schools and a few midstate school systems are saying they
might make it theirs. Others, including the two largest systems, say they
have no plans to make it so.

"What is the point in drug testing a student that participates in debate?"
asked Raynette Evans, Bibb County public schools athletics director who
also coordinates drug prevention efforts. "No, I don't think there is a
drug problem in the Bibb County public schools. Yes, there is drug use by
teen-agers in Bibb County, but most information and research and statistics
show you that students are not using drugs at school."