So far, all drug tests negative

Steve Marcus

The students: Green Valley High School freshman Keiannte Wilkins says he drank three extra cartons of chocolate milk the day he was tested, to make sure he’d be able to produce a urine sample. Wilkins has no problem with the testing of athletes who, he says, shouldn’t be using drugs. Other athletes have said it’s unfair to single them out.

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008 | 2 a.m.

So far none of the students checked for drugs under a fledgling program at Green Valley High School has tested positive, the school’s principal said Tuesday.

But it’s just the beginning of a program that is now set to last into fall, thanks to a donation from a particularly poignant source: a foundation created in response to an alcohol-related crash that claimed the lives of three Henderson 15-year-olds, one of them a Green Valley student. The drunken driver who survived the crash was also a Green Valley student.

The Just Keep Thinking Safety Foundation, formed by the families of the three boys killed in the November 2003 crash, recently donated $10,000 to the school’s random drug testing program, the first of its kind at a public school in Nevada. That money, combined with a prior $5,000 donation from the Foundation for Recovery in Las Vegas, is enough to fund the program for the remainder of the current school year and into fall, officials said.

The school plans to test about 30 students each month. All student-athletes are subject to testing, as are any other students whose parents request they be eligible.

Parents who want their children added to the testing pool must contribute $10 toward the cost of the test, and to date 20 families have opted in, Green Valley Principal Jeff Horn said.

Since launching the program Jan. 28, the school has randomly collected urine samples from 40 student-athletes. The lab has so far completed testing on more than half the samples and all were negative, Horn said.

The 40 students were screened for alcohol, tobacco and a variety of illegal substances including cocaine, steroids and amphetamines. A test that detects alcohol use within the prior 80 hours was also performed on 10 students. The more comprehensive alcohol test costs $35 more than the regular test’s cost, $27.

The $10,000 donation “will go a long way to help,” Horn said, noting that because of the source, “in a way, we’ve come full circle.”

The threat of random drug testing gives students “a way out of peer pressure situations,” said Rick Poff, whose son Kyle was one of the teens killed in the 2003 wreck. “They can say no to dangerous behavior without losing face.”

The high-profile crash, the first in a string of alcohol- and drug-related incidents involving Green Valley students, helped spur the random drug testing program, Horn said.

Students and their parents received plenty of warning that the random drug testing would begin Jan. 28, and Keiannte Wilkins, a member of the freshman basketball team, made sure he would be able to fill the specimen cup on demand.

He said he washed down his sausage and cheese breakfast muffin with an extra three cartons of chocolate milk that Monday morning, “just in case they called my name.”

As he was settling into his seat for his first-period geometry class, that’s exactly what happened. A staff member escorted Wilkins to the nurse’s office, where he was given instructions to wash his hands and fill up the collection container. Wilkins said he wasn’t nervous and even cracked a few jokes with the other students whose ID numbers had been drawn for the test.

“I have no problem with it (random testing),” Wilkins said. “If you’re playing sports, you shouldn’t be on drugs in the first place.”

From August 2006 to February 2007, however, nearly 8 percent of Green Valley’s student-athletes were caught using banned substances, more than twice the districtwide rate of 3.4 percent. And for the 2006-07 academic year, more than a third of all drug-related offenses reported to the Green Valley dean’s office involved athletes.

Athletes who test positive will face a six-week suspension, following the guidelines of the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association. They also will be subject to retesting at their own expense. After three positive tests, a student will be ineligible for sports for the remainder of his high school career.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that random drug testing of certain student groups is constitutional, but critics, including the Nevada chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, argue that the fear of being tested might drive students away from the very activities that would help them stay off drugs in the first place.

Parent response at the school has been generally favorable, although some people raised privacy concerns about how the test results would be recorded and shared. Students also seemed to generally support the new policy, although several varsity athletes said it was unfair to target them for the testing. They suggested the entire student body should face the same scrutiny.

Erin Breen, director of UNLV’s Safe Community Partnership, said she hopes the rest of Clark County’s public high schools follow Green Valley’s lead.

“Not only will this prevent some kids from doing drugs, because of the threat of getting kicked off the team, it will identify students who need help,” Breen said. “That’s a tremendous benefit.”

At least one Clark County high school, Silverado, may soon follow Green Valley’s lead. Principal Kim Grytdahl said he has asked his staff to determine what percentage of past drug-related offenses have involved student-athletes, and will be talking to his coaches and a committee of parents to gauge the support for random drug testing.

“We need to have the facts and data in front of us first,” Grytdahl said. “But we are taking this under serious consideration.”