HOBART | Staggering statistics are driving School City of Hobart officials to consider using random drug tests for middle school and high school students.

Superintendent Peggy Buffington told a group of parents, teachers and community members gathered Thursday night at Hobart High School that in an anonymous survey of the district's freshmen, Hobart students had tried drugs and alcohol earlier and have a higher rate of experimentation with cocaine and huffing aerosols than the national average.

"It's a target area we need to pursue and be better about," Buffington said.

School Board members last month approved the first reading of a plan to perform random drug tests on students in grades seven through 12 who participate in athletics and other extracurricular activities and those who drive to school. Board President Terry Butler said the plan is up for final approval Thursday and this week's information session was a way to educate the community on the concern before the plan is enacted.

Associate Superintendent Jim Thorne said he sees the plan as a deterrent to drug and alcohol use. The information gathered from the tests will not go to the Hobart Police Department, but will be handled by school administrators, Thorne said.

"If a kid does test positive, we want to get them on the right path," he said.

Under the proposal, that means mandatory counseling. Buffington said the district already has some counseling options in place, but will be looking at more options, as there's no universal solution.

The survey results indicate the percentage of Hobart students who have abused aerosols or other inhalants is more than six times the national average and the percentage who've tried cocaine is about three times the average, Hobart High School Principal Steve Spitzer said.

"It's almost shocking," he said. "You'd think a small town like Hobart would have been exempt from the problems of the inner city, but it's not," he said. "It's easy to tell kids to just say 'no,' but in the real world there are people who tell them to say 'yes.'"

Teaching students about the dangers of drugs and alcohol at an early age helps, but at some point, it seems to fade from memory, Hobart police Lt. Jack Grennes said. Grennes has taught elementary students about drugs and alcohol for the past nine years and also teaches a criminal justice course at the high school.

"Your parents aren't sitting next to you when you're offered that can of beer or that marijuana," Grennes said. "I tell my kids that I hope what I told you comes to your memory when you're put in that situation.