TESTING STUDENTS FOR DRUGS

Decatur, Hartselle Consider Adopting Policy; Limestone Supervisor's
Message: 'It Works'

HARTSELLE -- Donnie Powers has heard the arguments for and against a random
drug-testing policy for students who participate in extracurricular activities.

Two area school systems -- Hartselle and Decatur -- are considering
adopting drug-testing policies. The county school boards in Lawrence and
Limestone counties adopted policies in 1996.

Powers is maintenance and transportation director for the Limestone County
school system. He also supervises the drug-testing program and has a simple
message for school systems that do not have one.

"It works," Powers said.

The proof, he said, is in the numbers. All students in Limestone County who
participate in football, volleyball, track, baseball, softball, basketball,
golf, swimming, cheerleading, soccer, tennis and wrestling must submit to
at least one scheduled drug test. But they are subject to random tests.

Powers said between 3 and 4 percent of the athletes in Limestone County
tested positive for some kind of banned substance in 1996.

"Today, this figure is below 1 percent," he said. "The number of kids
testing positive has declined each year."

Powers does not buy the argument that drug testing is too expensive. He
said school systems spend thousands of dollars on coaching supplements. A
single drug test costs about $28. The Limestone school system budgets
$50,000 for the drug-testing program.

"If the money helps one kid, it's money well spent," Powers said. "It will
cost more to house the student in the county jail."

Hartselle City Council is pushing the school board to establish a
drug-testing policy.

The issue of testing in Hartselle centers on two baseball players who
collapsed in school March 4. One tested positive for marijuana at Hartselle
Medical Center.

School administrators and the school board took no disciplinary action
against the student because Superintendent Lee Hartsell said they could not
prove that the drug use took place in school or at a school function. The
school system has a policy against drug use in school or at a school function.

Chairman Susan Puckett said the school board considered a drug-testing
policy last year, but did not adopt one because of cost.

Policy Committee

Hartsell said that the board will appoint a committee to develop a student
drug-testing policy during a May 6 work session.

He wants the committee to include parents, coaches, a school board member
and a City Council member. Councilman Tom Chappell has volunteered to serve
on the committee. The superintendent has recommended that Hartselle High
Assistant Principal Susan Hayes be chairwoman.

Hartsell said the committee will answer two major questions: who will be
tested and how to punish a student who tests positive.

"I have about a dozen policies from other school systems, and they are
pretty much the same," he said.

The committee must also wait on a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court,
which is expected to rule this summer on a case involving student drug
testing in Oklahoma.

Attorneys for Lindsay Earls, who was a junior at Tecumseh High in 1999,
asked the justices to determine whether public schools can require drug
tests of all students in extracurricular activities, even if they are not
suspected of drug use. Another question in the case is whether the schools'
interest in protecting students and eliminating drug use overrides student
privacy.

The plaintiffs' claim that testing without suspected drug use violates the
student's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches. The
10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld the lower court ruling
against Ms. Earls.

Her case is not the first to appear before the Supreme Court. In 1995, the
court, by a 6-3 decision, upheld a drug-testing program for athletes in
Vernonia, Ore.