Drug Testing In the News
Schools around the Nation are recognizing the value of random drug testing as an effective way to help steer students away from drugs.
Since the 2002 Supreme Court ruling that broadened schools’ authority to test students for drug use, a number of schools have launched testing programs of their own or started taking steps to put a program in place. Newspaper reports from cities and towns across America indicate that the idea of testing is steadily gaining ground and winning acceptance as more schools discover the benefits.
Following are some examples of how student drug testing is making headlines.
Grand Prairie schools in Texas have been
awarded a three-year grant from the U.S.
Department of Education to administer
random drug tests to students who
participate in extracurricular activities.
School leaders asked for the money after noticing an
escalation in student drug use. Rosie Mendez, Grand
Prairie’s Safe and Drug-Free Schools coordinator, told
The Dallas Morning News (March 3), “We have kids
attending schools that are high, kids bringing in marijuana
and cocaine. We’re even seeing drug problems
with elementary students. This is happening, and we’re
saying: ‘We have a problem. Let’s deal with it.’”
The Francis Howell School District in St.
Charles, Missouri, will begin mandatory
drug testing this fall for students who
participate in extracurricular activities
and who have a campus parking permit, according to a
June 16 account in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. District
board member Anne Womack reportedly said she
evaluated the program from a personal perspective: “If
my child were experimenting or beginning to use drugs,
would I want to know? As a parent, the answer is yes.”
New Jersey has become the first state
to require drug testing for high-school
athletes. Under the plan, scheduled for
implementation this fall, high school students
whose teams qualify for championship games
must submit to a random drug test before competing.
Morris Knolls football coach Bill Regan, quoted in
the Daily Record (May 5), said drug testing might help
students resist pressure from peers to use drugs.
“It could help a kid make the right decision.”
Officials of Clovis Unified Schools in Fresno,
California, are pleased with the results of the
district’s new voluntary drug testing
program, according to the Fresno Bee
(June 30). Of the 1,100 students who signed
up for the program, 440 were summoned for a screening,
and only 11 tested positive for drugs, the article said.
Kelly Avants, director of communications for the district,
reportedly said, “We feel like the results affirmed our
decision to implement the program.”
Marquette Catholic High School in Alton,
Illinois, will start testing students for drug use
in the 2007-2008 school year, as reported in
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (April 30). School
leaders said they could have started this year,
but they wanted to make sure they were fully prepared
before launching the program. School board President
Ron Motil was reported to have said, “We want to
examine it from every angle, get input from parents
and supporters of the school, and take it apart and
put it back together again before we actually begin
the testing.” (Parochial schools are not subject to the
conditions set forth in the 1995 or 2002 Supreme Court
rulings on student drug testing, so the scope of the
testing pool is left to their discrection.)
The drug testing program set to launch this
fall in Houston’s Cypress-Fairbanks school
system is, in the words of one parent,
“the greatest thing that’s ever happened”
in the district, according to the Houston
Chronicle (April 17). In 2005, the district was awarded
a three-year Federal grant, the newspaper reported.
Under the headline “Drug-Tester Sees
Approval of Students,” the Arizona Republic
(March 25) reported that student response
to the Chandler Unified School District’s
drug testing program “seems overwhelmingly positive.”
The article quoted project director Regina Wainwright as
saying, “We really have not had a negative reaction.”
In fact, some students appear to welcome the program.
Wainwright recalled a young man telling her he was glad
when his name came up for a drug test. “This will prove
to everyone that I don’t take steroids,” he reportedly
told her. Of the 81 students who had been screened so
far, the article said, none had tested positive for drugs.
Three weeks after drug testing began in
California’s Vista Unified School District,
no students had tested positive for drugs,
as reported in the North County Times
(May 3). Nor, for that matter, had there been
any complaints from parents, some of whom had initially
opposed the idea. “After quite a lot of uproar, we began
testing, and it has been pretty smooth sailing,” said
Rancho Buena Vista High Principal Richard Alderson.
The article pointed out that despite some parents’
concerns kids would not sign up for extracurricular
activities to keep from getting tested, enrollment in
after-school activities actually increased.
As legal barriers fall and funding
increases, a growing number
of schools across the country
are testing students for drug use,
according to USA TODAY (July 12). The paper quoted
John Walters, Director, National Drug Control Policy,
who said testing helps teens resist peer pressure to use
drugs. “It’ll give a kid a suit of armor,” as he put it.