Zero Positives In First Round of Random Drug Tests at WDHS

The first round of tests are back in ’s annual random drug testing program, and they’re all clean.

Seventeen names were drawn from the pool of eligible students–seniors with parking privileges, students in extracurricular activities and those students whose parents have opted them in–with all coming back negative, which school officials and school board members pointed to as a sign the program is working.

School board President Christopher Strano called the program a tool to help students avoid peer pressure.

“Obviously, there’s more important things in their lives that they want to do–whether it’s play sports, drive cars to school, be part of something,” Strano said. “The tool’s working.”

The testing is done by an outside firm, and runs about $10,000 per year. With the random program, a computer draws about 20 names of students who’ll be tested. Superintendent Kevin Kitchenman said that’s resulted in some students being randomly tested multiple times during the year.

The 17 negative results this time were for a period through Sept. 25; testing will continue throughout the school year, with several hundred students getting randomly tested, Kitchenman said.

Last year, only tested positive during drug testing.

Students who test positive lose out on participating in extracurricular activities for 15 days, have to undergo counseling and have clean drug tests before they can participate again under the current policy, which has remained unchanged from its adoption in 2008.

One thing students are not tested for is steroids, which Kitchenman has previously said would be prohibitively expensive.