SILSBEE, Texas — During a school board meeting Tuesday night, the Silsbee ISD Board of Trustees unanimously agreed to pursue a random drug testing program.
Conversations have taken place over a period of time as officials try to create a new way to keep their students safe and not get into bad habits.
Superintendent Dr. Gregg Weiss said during the meeting that this program would serve as "another form of intervention" for students and parents.
Details referencing the random drug testing program were shared.
The pool of students would include all 7-12 graders who choose to participate in any extra curricular activity (sports, academics, etc.).
Boys and girls who drive to school would also be included.
Now, the board did point out that the results of these tests would be confidential.
Silsbee ISD would not be the first district in Southeast Texas to implement a policy like this.
There are already a handful of schools who are randomly drug testing students, including Lumberton ISD & Hamshire-Fannett ISD.
12News spoke with Hamshire-Fannett superintendent Dwaine Augustine, who says the program has worked well over the last five years to deter kids from using drugs.
"It is a deterrence and that was the primary reason, but also in the event a kid does test positive, we wanted a constructive process," Augustine said.
He adds the district didn't have a problem with drugs before it's implementation and says so far none of the results have come back positive.
Augustine tells 12News these tests look for a handful of drugs, including marijuana.
Each semester, 10-20 students are randomly drawn to take the test, which is administered on campus.
If a student does test positive, parents would be notified and a consultation will follow.
In Silsbee, the program appears to follow suit with the rest of the districts but the board says more details will need to be finalized.