Articles > Student Drug Testing For JPS - The Money Involved

Drug testing costs schools an average of $42 per student tested, according to the U.S. Department of Education. There are 15,200 middle and high school students in JPS, which is why testing all of them would cost at least $500,000. Only 7,250 of these students participate in one or more extracurricular activities, according to Hampton, so testing all of them once would cost $300,000.

The Rankin County School District, which has just begun drug testing of middle and high school students, is spending $150,000 on its first year of tests, said Assistant Superintendent Hugh Carr.

"We hope to get a federal grant to cover most of that expense, approximately $100,000," Carr said. Over the course of the year, Rankin will test 4,000 students out of a potential pool of 4,500, which includes all students involved in extracurricular activities and those who were volunteered by their parents. If students test positive, they will be suspended from extracurricular activities for 28 days and put into treatment. MEA Drug Testing of Jackson conducts the tests. The company also provides testing for the new program in Philadelphia (Miss.) schools, as well as Pearl and other districts, according to Lori Hamilton, MEA's manager of drug testing for the Jackson area.

If Jackson were to adopt a program with similar costs, it would cost at least $270,000. Federal grants might offset some of those costs, although Rankin County pushed forward with its program without any guarantee of federal money at all. Of course, in a state that ranks 47 out of 50 in per-student education spending, it remains to be seen whether drug testing is the best way to spend the money.

"Let's get pencils and paper and other supplies children need and then we might talk about it," says Oleta Fitzgerald of the Children's Defense Fund. From another perspective, $270,000 would pay the starting salaries of seven substance abuse counselors, assuming a base salary of $35,000. Education has a proven impact on student drug use, while student drug testing does not.

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