Overton, Creighton Prep have taken aim at drug use
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BY RYLY JANE HAMBLETON / Lincoln Journal Star
Congress is zeroing in on Major League Baseball and all eyes will be on Beijing when the Olympics begin.
Those venues are center stage in the drug-testing world right now. But a small town in Nebraska has already taken a stand, and the most visible metropolitan school in the state will begin its assault on illegal drugs.
Creighton Prep announced plans to randomly test athletes for performance-enhancing drugs beginning this fall. The private school will be the first school in the state to test for anabolic steroids and similar performance-enhancing drugs.
For Overton, pop. 663, it was the world of recreational drugs that posed the greatest danger.
“We just finished our fourth year of testing. It’s not to catch kids. That’s not the goal of the program,” said superintendent Mark Aten. “The goal is to help kids make good choices.”
Aten said Overton tests randomly from a pool of all students who participate in extracurricular activities.
Overton students who wish to participate in athletics, drama, plays and any other activities must sign up during the first week of the school year. They receive a handbook, which details the drug-testing procedure. A student, and his or her parents, must sign the handbook to be eligible to participate in the activity.
“We survey our students every year and, surprisingly, most kids are 100 percent behind the testing program,” Aten said. “Many want us to increase it, and the staff and school board and community are behind it.
“If this is one way to keep them off drugs, then it’s a success.”
Karen Hand, director of athletics for Lincoln Public Schools, said the district once considered drug testing.
“We talked about this when drug testing first became popular eight to 10 years ago,” she said. “It’s so very costly that we decided there are better uses for our money. We haven’t discussed it recently.”
Aten said Overton tests for THC (the active agent in marijuana), opiates, methamphetamines, cocaine derivatives and nicotine.
“We test once a month, sometimes every two weeks, three or four students at a time,” Aten said. “When we started this, there weren’t a lot of models around. You have to be careful about the chain of custody of the tests and get good testing.
“We have not had a lot of positives (tests). You hear stories about what percentage of kids are doing drugs — 5, 6 or 7 percent. Our positive tests are very minimal, way below that. It think that’s a credit to our students.”
Overton has a scale of consequences. If a student self-reports, it’s a four-week suspension from activities. A positive test results in a suspension of six to 10 weeks. If a student tests positive for a third time, they are out of activities for the rest of their high school career.
“If they choose to get counseling and professional guidance, it’s taken into consideration,” Aten said. “We want to hold our kids in extracurricular activities to a higher standard.”
Aten said he’s happy to provide students a reason to say no to drugs.
“I’ll be the bad guy. They can blame me when they have to make a choice,” he said. “They can blame the mean old superintendent if they need a scapegoat. They can say they are in sports and if they get tested positive, it will hurt the team. That can help them keep each other clean.”
Aten said the test kits cost between $5 and $10 apiece.
“At first, we were afraid of what the cost might be,” he said. “You don’t want cost to override safety, but that comes into play.”
When testing for steroids, the costs soar. Creighton Prep athletic director Dan Schinzel said each test will cost $100 to $110.
“We’ll test maybe 30 to 35 kids in the school year, so we can keep the cost under $5,000,” he said. “I was under the impression it would be more expensive. And if your argument is that kids will get around the tests, that’s a poor argument.
“Our test isn’t as comprehensive as the NCAA tests, but it will identify the top 20 performance-enhancing drugs. And we’ll get a test for HGH (human growth hormone) eventually.”
Schinzel said Creighton Prep considered testing for recreational drugs as well.
“But we already have a drug-testing policy in place for the whole student body as a condition of enrolling,” he said. “If we suspect a problem, we can test. That’s why we didn’t put street drugs in with this testing.”
Schinzel said Creighton Prep will be working with the National Center for Drug Free Sport. The Center will select six to 10 boys, selected from the activities pool at random, and send the names to Schinzel. He will notify the athletes, who have 24 hours to comply and provide a urine sample.
If the athlete doesn’t show up for the test or subsequently fails the test, he will be ineligible to compete in any sport for one calendar year.
“Most parents are behind it and understand why we’re doing it,” Schinzel said. “A couple of people have questioned what we are doing. We want this to be an educational endeavor. We want to educate parents about the dangers of these drugs and help them determine if their kids are using performance-enhancing drugs. And, we hope to deter kids from using them.”
The Nebraska School Activities Association has provided educational tools to schools, according to executive director Jim Tenopir.
“We sent out a multimedia packet, with posters, video clips for students and for parents explaining the tell-tale signs of steroid use,” Tenopir said. “Four states are doing testing. New Jersey was the first to do it. The governor mandated that and put up $50,000 to pay for it at the state-championship level.
“Florida is doing that and the Texas legislature put up $6 million for two years of testing. The only state association footing the bill is Illinois.”
Tenopir said a survey, done in conjunction with the Nebraska Department of Education and Health and Human Services, showed less than 1 percent of students have used steroids.
“That didn’t warrant a full-blown testing program,” Tenopir said. “We would have to be armed with better information that we have a bigger problem than I think we have or if lawmakers put out the requirement. I would not say statewide testing is something that is imminent.”
Because both the Overton and the Creighton Prep drug-testing programs are random among participants in extracurricular activities, they are on solid legal ground, according to Greg Perry of Perry, Guthery, Haase & Gessford law offices.
“When you talk about student drug testing in the law, there have been two Supreme Court tests. One, you can do for athletes and two, you can do for all extracurricular activities,” he said. “Some states are mandating steroid testing. In Nebraska, it is still a local decision.
“It’s common statewide for schools to have drug testing — they use alcohol breathalyzers for school dances. When you’re talking about a whole-scale program for athletes, that’s a different situation.”
Ryly Jane Hambleton at 473-7314 or rhambleton@journalstar.com.
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NoDano wrote on June 19, 2008 11:20 am:
Way to go LPS for making the hard, correct decision to not test! "
Curious wrote on June 19, 2008 11:47 am:
It's too expensive for LPS to afford a $5-10 drug test? "
Paul Dietz wrote on June 19, 2008 3:54 pm:
Bob wrote on June 25, 2008 10:25 am:
The reason Overton is able to do this program is b/c they don't test for steriods and I'm sure they buy these drug testing kits in bulk. The end result is that it basically allows them to drug test as they see fit (honestly, I highly doubt their are many kids who don't do some extracuriculiar activity at some point during highschool in Overton-clubs, band, drama, sports).
The ruling on eligibility requirements of testing students was really done to address sports and the possibility of use of performance enhancers or steriods. That ruling, as evidented in this article, has obviously led many different intrepratations on how, and what, they can wish to test. I'm sure it's very reassuring to many in Overton that they do this, but that really wasn't the intended consequence of the initial court ruling (more steriods/performance enhancers focus than drugs). Testing like this can be also interpreted as very subjective in the nature of selection (which besides a high cost, is the main reason I believe LPS doesn't do it). Easy to do in a school with 20-50 kids, tough to do in a district with 1000's. If you can't test them all, then testing one and not another allows for discrimination which can problematic for lawsuits. "