Ohio firm to conduct Pamlico athletic drug testing

BAYBORO — The Pamlico County Board of Education unanimously approved a contract on Monday with the Ohio-based company Sport Safe Testing Service Inc. to do the random drug testing of students who participate in extracurricular activities.

George Robinson, chairman of the board, said the education officials approved the contract because Pamlico is a “small place” and the board wanted the testing to be carried out anonymously.

The Pamlico County Health Department had initially conducted the district’s initial tests last year, but can no longer do so because of conflict of interest as well as resource concerns.

 “We had been doing it locally, but it’s better to have someone else do it,” Robinson said by phone on Tuesday. “Because our attorney has advised to get people who are as far away from the school division as possible to take the samples.”

Robinson said the policy was put in place last year during the tenure of the district’s former Superintendent Rick Sherrill to eliminate drugs in the schools.

According to the district’s random drug testing policy approved by the board in May of 2008, all students in grades seven through 12 who participate in athletics, cheerleading, other extracurriculars, who take drivers education classes or park on the school campus must participate in the random testing.

The policy states that eligible students are randomly selected from a list and are given an oral saliva test that checks for marijuana, cocaine, phencyclidine, amphetamines, methamphetamines or alcohol, and opiates such as oxycontin.

The goal of the policy is to test about 50 percent of eligible students each school year if there is enough money, while also avoiding removing students from their classes for a long time, according to a draft of the policy discussed at the September board meeting.

“It’s just to clear up as much as possible the drug situation,” Robinson said.

Superintendent James Coon said the only testing done in the system was in September of 2008. There were changes that had to be made to the policy “before we could move forward,” he said. Contracting with the company will cost $27 per test, and would amount to $5,000 to $6,000 to test 50 percent of the eligible pool, Coon said.

The health department carried out the initial tests, said Davin Madden, Pamlico County Health director. But Madden said he had concerns about possible conflicts of interest if health department nurses continued to test the students because of the county’s size.

“Our health department nurses are involved with the same parents, school teachers in the same community as the school nurses,” Madden said.

In addition, Madden said the department does not have the resources to do the testing.

The board had discussed in previous meetings having school nursing staff do the testing, but Coon said the attorney advised against that.

The board will possibly look at further revisions to the policy in the future that he said he was not ready to discuss at this time. He said the board could take in the input of the contracted company.

“Drugs, alcohol and substance abuse are a problem nationally,” Coon said. “Pamlico County has taken a very proactive approach to substance abuse. This is only one small piece of the overall puzzle.”

Also at the meeting, the school officials discussed the plans for a heating and air conditioning system to be installed at Pamlico County High School gymnasium. The project will be put out to bid, and those bids will be due back by Dec. 2, Coon said.

Coon said the school officials are hoping to have the construction start in April and conclude in August, so there would be several months that the gym is off-limits.

Indoor sports such as volleyball and basketball will be over by the time, Robinson said.

Coon said that physical education classes would go outside during the construction, or to other areas such as the cafeteria.

The project is initially estimated to cost between $400,000 and $500,000, he said, and paid for with the system’s capital reserve fund.

Laura Oleniacz can be reached at 252-635-5675 or at loleniacz@freedomenc.com.