LAKESIDE OKS DRUG TESTING PROCEDURE

After several months of deliberation by the Lakeside School Board, parents
in the Lakeside School District who suspect their children may be using
alcohol or drugs now have access to low-cost drug testing kits.

In a unanimous vote Tuesday, the board approved a plan to provide drug and
alcohol testing kits to parents in the district. The kits, manufactured by
Redwood Biotech Inc. of Santa Rosa, Calif., will be sold to parents at the
district's cost, $5. Parents who cannot afford the kits will be given one
for free, said Lakeside Superintendent Danny Slay.

The board first considered providing the kits to parents at its December
board meeting. Prior to that time, the district's drug testing review
committee recommended that the district conduct random drug tests on
fifth-through 12th-grade students who were to be voluntarily signed up for
the tests by their parents.

The committee, which is made up of school administrators, parents,
community members and health officials, began studying a drug testing plan
after conducting a voluntary survey of 173 sixth-, 176 eighth- and 167
10th-graders at the end of the 2000-2001 school year.

The survey, which sampled 97 percent of Lakeside students in the three
grades, showed that 8 percent of surveyed sixth-graders said they had used
marijuana. That number increased to 21 percent among sampled eighth-graders
and 44 percent of the district's sophomores who took part in the survey.

On average, the survey found that Lakeside sixth-graders were 11.6 years
old when they first used marijuana. Eighth-grade students surveyed said
they first used the drug when they were 11.8 years old. Sophomores at
Lakeside High School said their first time to smoke pot was at an average
age of 13.7 years.

Confidentiality concerns squashed the committee's random drug testing
proposal. The board delayed making drug and alcohol testing kits available
from the district until it was comfortable that the privacy of the
district's students would be protected. According to the newly adopted
policy, students will not be punished if their parents pick up a test kit
and the results will not be shared with Lakeside School District.

To get one of the testing kits, parents must contact one of the district's
two full-time nurses and make arrangements to pick it up at a confidential
location. Parents must sign and date a release form when they pick up the
test, agreeing to "hold harmless and indemnify Lakeside School District,
its administrators, faculty and employees from any and all liability" as a
result of furnishing the testing kits.

The release form, which never identifies a student by name, requires
parents to designate whether they receive an alcohol breathalyzer test or a
urine test, which screens for cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines ecstasy
and opiates. Any positive test results should be confirmed in a certified
laboratory by a separate gas chromatography/mass spectrometry diagnostic
test, according to Redwood Biotech.