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Illinois School Board Journal
May - June 2001

Where they’re testing
Four districts share details on random drug testing

By Linda Dawson

Linda Dawson is IASB director of editorial services and Journal editor.

Although each follows different procedures, four of the 41 districts in Illinois with random drug testing policies share at least two things in common: wide-based community support and very few positive tests.

In addition, they believe their random drug testing policies give students very strong reasons to resist any peer pressure to drink or use illegal drugs — the possibility that their number could come up at any time and the risk of being kicked off the team.

The 41 districts were identified through an Illinois Association of School Boards survey conducted by Max Pierson and Steven Rittenmeyer, professors at Western Illinois University in Macomb.

Administrators at Kewanee Community Unit School District 229 and Orion Community Unit School District 223, both in Blackhawk Division in northwest Illinois, and Paris Union School District 95 and Westville Community Unit School District 2, both in Illini Division in east-central Illinois, all say their communities back board decisions to adopt random drug testing policies.

"In five years, we’ve not had one person speak in opposition," said Mike Kirkham, principal at Kewanee High School, "and I don’t believe we’ve lost any student participation in extracurriculars because of it."

When it first considered a random drug testing policy, the school community was tired of hearing that all the athletes were drinking, Kirkham said. Administrators met with the student council and then with the school board, which held two open meetings for the community before adopting the policy. Kewanee’s policy applies to high school students involved in athletics, marching band, cheerleading or the pom pon squad.

As freshmen, Kirkham said, students agree to be in a testing "pool." While some districts test only during an athlete’s competitive season, Kewanee students agree to be tested at any time during the school year by agreeing to be in the pool.

Students are assigned numbers that rotate each week. The school calls its auditor once a week to obtain five random numbers plus alternates to allow for absences. Each day, one number is drawn and that student reports to the Dean’s office during first period, which is homeroom. The student is taken to a nearby hospital to give a urine specimen.

Kirkham said being called out of homeroom "is not a big deal" because other students are being called in as well for other things. "Unless the student says that’s where he or she has been, others wouldn’t necessarily know," he said.

The program has tested about 120 students each of the past five years. Of that number, Kirkham said, maybe five or six a year have come back positive — all for marijuana.

The Orion program, on the other hand, has yet to turn up a positive result. The district tested about 100 students last school year and is on target to test another 180 students this year, according to Mike Nitzel, high school principal.

"Some people think the district must have had a huge drug problem," Nitzel said. "That’s not the case. Drugs are an issue here like they are at any high school — no more, no less."

But the Orion district wanted to be more proactive in helping students say "no" to drugs and alcohol. Nitzel said administration, the school board and the community believe that the district’s random drug testing policy gives students just one more reason to say "no."

Everyone who has a non-graded extracurricular activity must sign a "consent to testing" form before the first practice, Nitzel said. "If they’re not going to do anything until track season, they must sign prior to tryouts."

If consent is withdrawn, a student is immediately ineligible for extracurricular activities and loses one-third of the next season as well, he said. If their number is drawn and they won’t test, they’re also considered in non-compliance and lose one-third of their season.

Testing at Orion is conducted under contract with the Robert Young Center in Rock Island. The center sends a lab technician to the school about once a week, Nitzel said, and five to 10 students whose numbers are drawn are sent to a relatively private bathroom reserved for testing.

Even though the test is 99.9 percent accurate, he said, any positive test would be split with a portion sent to another lab to confirm the results.

Testing costs the district about $4,600 a year at $26 a test, but the cost was deemed worth it by the board, which felt "very strongly" about implementing the policy, Nitzel said.

Community support was positive enough that most questions about the program involved procedures, not "Why are you testing?" Parents were more concerned about whether Ritalin or birth control pills would show up in results, he said, rather than the perceived need to test.

Both of these districts are close to Interstate 80, often referred to as a conduit for drugs across the United States, and an area that showed higher numbers of testing districts in the random drug testing survey. But Kirkham and Nitzel said concern for student safety and offering perceived student leaders just one more reason to say no were more the driving factors behind their decision to test than their proximity to I-80.

The other area that showed a higher concentration of testing districts lies along the Illinois/Indiana border.

Michael Watts, superintendent at the Paris Union district in Edgar County, said his board of education became more and more aware of what was happening with random drug testing in neighboring Indiana and chose to begin testing four years ago.

The Paris Union survey was marked as testing athletes and "other extracurricular groups." Marching band members were not included, nor were students driving vehicles to school.

Students draw their own numbers and then numbers are drawn for testing. The only person with access to the master list that matches students with testing numbers is the principal.

Although Watts said they haven’t kept track, he estimates fewer than five positive results since testing began.

"The community was generally supportive," Watts said, although some raised issues about the right of the district to do this and making it a condition of participation. But the program has continued.

Just north of Paris, in neighboring Vermillion County, Westville CUSD 2 began testing about a year later.

"We test every one to two weeks," said James Cox, superintendent, but the district intentionally tries not to be regular with its testing schedule to add to its random nature. Eight students are tested at a time at a cost of about $800 a month for nine months, or $7,200 a school year.

"Occasionally we receive some grumblings from individuals who don’t like it," Cox said, but the community has generally been very supportive of the effort.
The Westville board decided drug problems at the school had become serious enough to begin testing after seeing an increase in student discipline problems all linked to drug use or possession.

"We wanted to let students know drug use wouldn’t be condoned on school grounds and send a message that anyone using drugs had better watch out," Cox said.

But for his district, too, the numbers turned up by the random testing have been low: maybe two this year, he said. The district tests athletes and students who drive to school.

"I tell them it’s so confidential," Cox said. "I really don’t want to know unless there’s a problem."

Want to learn more about the issue of random drug testing in Illinois schools? Journal authors Max Pierson and Steven Rittenmeyer have put together a teleconference on their survey findings.

The Western Illinois University professors will be part of a panel discussion to air Wednesday, May 23, at 5 p.m. CDT. Testing for the program will begin at 4:30. Other participants are yet to be determined.

Coordinates for the May 23, 2001, broadcast are:

Ku-Band; Galaxy 11; Transponder 13; Frequency 11960; Pol. Horizontal; Audio 6.2-6.8
C-Band; Galaxy 3; Transponder 3; Frequency 3760; Pol. Horizontal; Audio 6.2-6.8
Starnet Channel (C)

Anyone wishing technical advice should call (309) 298-1880.