HAYDEN MAY TEST FOR DRUGS

HAYDEN - About 80 percent of Hayden High School students left campus
on a daily basis for lunch last year, Principal Nick Schafer said. If
those students want to keep that option, they may have to get their
parents' permission -- and submit to random drug testing.

The Hayden Board of Education will decide at its meeting today whether
to approve a policy that would require students who want to leave
campus during lunch to sign a waiver authorizing the school to give
them random drug tests at any time during the school year. Students
who do not want to sign the waiver would have to submit to a
closed-campus policy.

The proposed policy was developed by the high school's parent-teacher
group, the School Improvement Team, as a result of the findings that
drug use, particularly marijuana, is rampant in the school. In June,
the School Improvement Team sent surveys to every high school family
in the district; about 20 were returned. The results indicated that
while some parents and students strongly opposed the idea of random
drug testing, most parents supported the idea and thought it would
improve school climate.

"With the size of this school, we should be able to control (drug
use)," Schafer said.

But some students say the school cannot control it.

According to a national Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted in 1990,
almost one-third of all high school students admitted to using
marijuana at least once.

Junior Jordan Marchbanks said several students in the school do smoke
or have smoked marijuana, but he did not think it hindered their class
performance or learning. He also said most do not smoke before or
during school but on weekends or occasionally at night.

Senior Jordan Rolando agreed. He said he and several other seniors are
so against the policy that they will protest it the first day of
school. He said they probably would opt to stay on campus, rather than
subject themselves to drug testing.

"How can this be a problem for this small school?" Rolando asked. "It
can't be that big of a problem. I don't know if they're trying to keep
kids at school to make money in the lunchroom or what. It's just not
necessary."

Schafer has said the goal of closing campus and offering random drug
testing is to improve school climate. He said a student survey would
be held at the end of the year to determine if the new policies have
changed the climate of the school for better or worse.

The School Board meeting begins at 7 p.m. today in the board meeting
room in the Hayden Schools Administration Building, 495 W. Jefferson
Ave.