FEW VISTA STUDENTS TEST POSITIVE FOR DRUGS

VISTA -- Nearly a year after Vista Unified School District began
testing high school students in extracurricular activities for drugs,
hundreds of students have been tested and only a small fraction have
tested positive, district officials said Tuesday.

So far this school year, which started in August, 510 students at the
district's two comprehensive high schools have been tested and 10 were
found to have illegal drugs in their system, said Gayle Olson,
director of student support services for the district.

No students have tested positive more than once, Olson
said.

"It's really a deterrent," she said. "The parents have been very
positive and grateful."

Athletic directors at Vista and Rancho Buena Vista high schools said
the testing has been beneficial and kept teens away from drugs.

"I feel the strength of the program is the word of mouth," said Dave
Whiddon, athletic director at Rancho Buena Vista. "Kids know the
testing is going on weekly."

In addition to the roughly 2,400 students involved in extracurricular
activities, who were required to sign up for the testing, roughly 400
parents at Rancho Buena Vista and 200 at Vista High voluntarily have
signed their teens up for the program, school officials said.

The testing is paid for with a $211,000 federal grant, which the
district secured for 2 1/2 years.

Throughout a normal week, a handful of students at each campus are
selected at random, taken out of class and tested for marijuana,
opiates, cocaine, methamphetamine and PCP.

After a first positive test result, parents are told and the student
is offered counseling.

If the student fails a second test in the same school year, he or she
is suspended from extracurricular activities for five days or at least
one competition. After 30 days, that student will have to test clean
twice before returning to the activity.

A student is kicked off the team or club for the remainder of the year
if he or she tests positive three times in one year.

When the school board unanimously approved the testing policy last
February, some critics were concerned that testing would discourage
some students from participating in extra curricular activities.

This has not happened, said Whiddon and Pat Moramarco, Vista High's
athletic director.

In fact, at Vista High School, the number of students participating
increased this year, Moramarco said.

"I don't think we're losing kids at all," he said.

At the time, some parents complained that the district was twisting
their arms with the program because they could either sign slips
giving the district permission to test their children or remove the
teens from all extracurricular activities.

Still, district officials have said the majority of parents and
students support the testing.

"They want their children to be drug-free," Olson said.