KHS addresses handling of failed athletic drug screenings

By JOSH MCDONALD

Staff Reporter

KELLOGG — When the Kellogg School District began drug testing their athletes three years ago, they knew there would be some growing pains — due largely in part to inexperience with the tests themselves.

Recently, the district and the high school were forced to experience some of these pains.

At the beginning of the winter sports season, Kellogg High School athletes were required to take drug tests in order to play. The results of these tests showed that 14 KHS male athletes (including five varsity basketball players) showed amounts of nicotine in their systems.

Team drug testing is regularly conducted prior to the beginning of the season, during or immediately after the try-out process, and tests for everything from alcohol, tobacco or nicotine substances, opiates, opium derivatives, stimulants, steroids, cocaine, hallucinogens, cannabis and any synthetic equivalents to these substances.

The nicotine portion of the test though is separate from the drug portion.

With a new athletic code in one hand and positive results in the other, the district and the school were put into a situation where they had to question both their testing policy and their sense of equality.

The school and district were prepared to levy penalties against the offending players upon viewing the results, but then they realized that the female athletes had not been tested for nicotine like the males had.

“Unfortunately, we did have a number of students test positive for nicotine products,” KSD superintendent Dr. Nancy Larsen said. “Which is illegal, and we have policies against that and we are going to enforce those when we find them. Here’s the unfortunate part, there aren’t always easy decisions to make. You have to gather all the information and then do the best you can.”

Title IX of the Education Amendments Act is widely known, as it was created in the early 1970s to make sure that discrimination on the grounds of gender ceased in federally funded programs.

The Act of 1972 specifically reads as follows:

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."

Upon realizing the disparity, the school district was forced to acknowledge that the company they used for the testing had made a mistake by not testing every athlete for nicotine.

“When the boys were tested and the nicotine was found, the process was started to hold them accountable,” Larsen said. “But then it was brought to the athletic director’s attention that we weren’t holding the girls team to the same standard which was a Title IX. So we had to ask ourselves if we were going to violate Title IX or are we going to let these kids go at this time?”

Ultimately the school elected to not violate Title IX, but officials have a plan to hold the athletes accountable.

At an earlier meeting between the coaches, athletic director, players and parents to discuss the situation; it was agreed that there would be random testings throughout the season and any further violations would result in the enforcement of the athletic code as currently defined.

Students over the age of 18, who can legally purchase tobacco and nicotine products, are still prohibited from using them if they are competing in high school athletics.

The Kellogg School Board approved a revised athletic code this past summer, which removed clunky wording and various loopholes.

For example, in a previous draft of the document, a student getting caught on their second category B offense (drugs, alcohol, tobacco, criminal offense) was to be suspended for 80 percent of the upcoming games in a season.

If a student gets their first offense for a category B offense and decides to participate in a school approved counseling program, their initial suspension of 50 percent of the season can be reduced to 30 percent.

The code now spans the life of a student’s extracurricular activities, from seventh grade up to their senior year. This means that students who may get their first offense in middle school would now have an even tighter leash in high school.

Kellogg High School Athletic Director Mike LaFountaine believes that all parties involved, from parents and students to even the coaches, should make sure they are aware of what is written in the code and understand what they are signing when they agree to it.

“We have great students here, but sometimes they make poor decisions. We took a look at the code as it was written and said, ‘this isn’t black and white, there is a lot of confusing gray area here,’ and that is what we worked to eliminate,” LaFountaine said following the school board’s approval of the document. “I encourage all athletes, coaches, and parents to spend some time with the new activity code to better understand it.”

Safe to say, all teams will receive complete testings from now on at KHS.