Al.com – by Sally Pearsall Ericson
MOBILE, Alabama — There will be more drug tests this fall in the Mobile County school system as officials encourage more students to join the testing pool, including eighth-graders.
The first round of drug tests, about 120 screenings, have already been conducted among Mobile County high school students, with 100 percent negative results, said Larry Mouton, executive director of the school system’s career and technical education department.
The Drug Education Council oversees the program, which now has a $120,000 budget and three full-time teachers, said DEC Executive Director Virginia Guy.
The testing pool includes all students who take part in extracurricular activities; those who drive to campus; and those who voluntarily sign up. The eighth-grade testing pool is only administered to those who “opt in,” Guy said.
At its Sept. 24 meeting, the Mobile County school system approved a $25,000 contract with the DEC to help pay for the drug testing and education program.
Other partners who’ve contributed resources or funding to the program, Guy said, include Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran, District Attorney Ashley Rich, the United Way of Southwest Alabama, the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce and numerous local businesses.
“Business and industry have done an outstanding job of supporting what they know is an outstanding initiative in our schools,” Mouton said.
Mouton said school officials were trying to get as many students as possible into the testing pool, which is updated each month as students sign up for clubs or programs, or take part in anything that could be designated as an extracurricular activity, he said.
He estimated that nearly 80 percent of the system’s high school students, or about 16,000 students, are part of the testing pool.
Here is how the testing program works: Every two weeks at each of Mobile County’s 12 high schools, the names of 15 students – 10 initial names and five alternates – are chosen randomly from the pool, and those students are called to the office to submit a urine sample.
The samples are screened for 11 substances: marijuana, cocaine, opiates, methamphetamines, amphetamines, methadone, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, oxycodone, ecstasy and synthetic marijuana, also known as spice.
The tests are conducted by the Occupational Health Clinic. As each sample is received, it is immediately given a “rapid screen” on site.
An important part of the overall program is education and counseling, Guy said. The three teachers on the DEC staff visit schools daily to stress the consequences of drug use and to get the word out that counseling and free testing is available at the DEC, she said.
“I wanted education and help to be available for all families, not just for those in the pool,” Guy said.
Middle school teachers and administrators are encouraging eighth-graders to “opt in” to the testing program, and those tests will begin in middle schools at the end of October, Mouton said.
The DEC has had multiple requests from administrators and parents to begin offering the voluntary signup to middle-schoolers, Guy said.
“That came about really because of a groundswell of requests from the families and educators,” she said.
The Baldwin County school system does not have a drug testing program. In August 2013, then-Superintendent Alan Lee asked seven high school principals to discuss the issue with the Baldwin County school board.
The principals told the board that such tests failed to target the children who were most likely at risk and were also a disruption of classroom time.
http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2014/09/drug_testing_and_education_pro.html