Pubdate: Tue, 29 Apr 2014
Source: Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH)
Copyright: 2014 The Plain Dealer
Contact: http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/letter-to-editor/
Website: http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/342
Author: Angela Townsend

DRUG TESTING FOR ALL STUDENTS TO BEGIN AT 3 LOCAL HIGH SCHOOLS

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Students at three area Catholic high schools found
out this morning that they will each have to part with a bit of their
hair for drug testing when they return to class in the fall.

At the same time that administrators broke the news of the mandatory
drug testing to students in special assemblies at Gilmour Academy and
St. Edward and St. Ignatius high schools, they also notified parents
in a mass email.

The testing will affect about 340 students at Gilmour, nearly 980
students at St. Ed's and more than 1,500 students at St. Ignatius.

The timing of the announcement - with just a few weeks remaining
before summer vacation - is not accidental. School officials say
they're giving students who need it plenty of time to clean up their
act.

Hair analysis can detect drug use from as long as three months
ago.

The drug testing is not meant to be punitive, school officials said.
Rather, it is a wellness initiative meant to connect students who are
using or abusing illegal drugs and prescription medications with the
appropriate assessment, counseling and treatment - and to keep other
students from experimenting.

In separate interviews with The Plain Dealer, school leaders all cited
the heroin epidemic in Northeast Ohio as the impetus for the testing,
which will continue on a random basis throughout the school year.
Discussions about mandatory drug testing have been in the works for
nearly two years.

The leaders also said they hope the new initiative will give students
a useful tool to wield against societal and peer pressure.

"The most powerful thing to me is that this gives a kid a legitimate
chance to say no," said Jim Kubacki, president of St. Edward in
Lakewood. "It gives them an out."

There is plenty of precedent for mandatory school-wide drug testing,
but until now it hasn't existed in Northeast Ohio.

In the fall of 2012, St. John's Jesuit High School & Academy in Toledo
began testing its students and staff.

It's one of more than 200 schools that have retained the services of
Boston-based Psychemedics Corp., the company that will conduct drug
testing for Gilmour, St. Ed's and St. Ignatius. It is the world's
largest provider of hair testing for the detection of drugs.

Among Psychemedics' other clients are schools in Florida, Kansas,
Nebraska and the entire diocese of Peoria, Illinois. College clients
include the University of Notre Dame's athletic department.

Near Youngstown, the Boardman school district is also is considering
mandatory drug testing for every student on a sports team or who
drives to school.

"This is about deterrence -- it's not about catching anybody," said
Psychemedics' George Elder, who instituted mandatory drug testing as a
school administrator in Memphis, Tennessee before joining the company
several years ago as vice president of schools and colleges.

"We got less than 1 percent [positive tests] the first year and every
year after," he said.

Mandatory, random drug testing will be new for the more than 1,500
students at St. Ignatius on Cleveland's West Side, but drug testing
itself is not, said the Rev. William Murphy, the school's president.

"Sometimes a parent will ask us to help test [their child]," he said.
"Sometimes a student's behavior will encourage us =C2=85 but this hasn't
happened very often."

Brother Robert Lavelle, head of school at Gilmour Academy in Gates
Mills, said he hopes the new drug testing policy will help arm
students as well as educate them.

"We all know that the path to addiction is easy to get on," he said,
"but hard to get off."

Reaction to the news has been mixed. Students interviewed by The Plain
Dealer at the three schools were generally positive. Some parents were, t
oo.

"We think it's a positive move," said Leigh Owen of Brecksville, whose
two older children attend Gilmour. Her son will be a senior in the
fall. "This will definitely be dinner conversation tonight."

Karen Perkowski, whose son will be a freshman at St. Ed's in the fall,
also supports the mandatory testing.

"Anything you can do to combat this issue," she said.

Others voiced their concerns.

"Why, if there is a false positive, does the test have to be done by
the same company?" one caller who identified herself as a parent,
asked. "Why can't it go to a neutral third party lab?"

Another parent of a child who will enroll at St. Ed's in the fall said
he supports the decision to conduct drug testing, but said he wonders
about the timing of the announcement. Other families who are against
it, but who already have committed to sending their sons to the
school, are now in a bind, he said.
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MAP posted-by: Matt