Athletes get reason to say ‘no’ (The Huntington Herald-Dispatch)
HUNTINGTON — Fall sports seasons at Huntington High School and Cabell Midland High School officially initiate Monday, but before prospective athletes could take the province they had to be off through a shiver course on the new Cabell County random drug testing policy.
It turned out to be a lesson in soundness and sociology for many athletes.
Huntington High softball players Kiara Chappelle and Ashley Byrd were among nearly 1,000 students who attended the Wednesday orientation session in the HHS gymnasium, and instantly they got a surprise.
"At first, I didn’t know if they were going to test everyone, but I guess they are just going to randomly pick," Chappelle said following the adventure.
A similar orientation meeting was conducted at Cabell Midland for students who participate in school-sponsored interscholastic extra-curricular activities and students who drive to school and park on campus. Students current drug testing consent forms to be signed and returned before they be able to participate.
Random remedy testing will be conducted weekly during the school year. Penalties notwithstanding positive tests will include notification of parent/preserver; two-week suspension from partaking and complete suspension from all extra-curricular activities.
Chappelle and Byrd the pair declared they weren’t nervous at all about being assayed, and that sparked a debate in the midst of surrounding parents as to why those students participating in sports or extra-curricular activities were the only ones being tested.
One Huntington High parent asked, "Where are all the other students who aren’t participating in sports?"
To that Byrd answered, "They are at home merry."
Byrd said even supposing she wondered why athletes and those driving to school were the only ones who attended, she did not feel as though athletes had been singled out in the process.
Especially in the adolescent years, athletes are thought of as the "in lower classes" at schools, and Todd Alexander, the administrative assistant for Cabell County secondary schools, said with that familiarity comes more pressure to act as the "in crowd."
Alexander and other members of the Cabell County Board of Education hope the random testing gives students who are feeling unwanted squeezing a step to avoid difficult situations.
"The biggest thing is to give students an added stimulus not to do drugs," Alexander said. "We are looking at that kid who is under a lot of peer pressure that is just looking for some reason to say no to save face with his peers."
Alexander said sometimes parents have a false sense of relief that active children are not using drugs or alcohol. He is hoping the testing provides some clarity for those parents.
Protecting the privacy of minors is single in kind of the main channel issues with remedy testing, but Cabell Midland athletic superintendent and boys soccer coach Jack DeFazio said the plan was laid out so that the privacy of the athlete is respected under any circumstances.
"We want to make sure it is taken in the character of confidential as possible," DeFazio said. "The moot point with doing this is that you always have rumors, so we want to always protect our students."
Drug testing in open-air sports has always been associated with marijuana use or the abuse of certain pain medications, but the testing done by Cabell County will include alcohol and steroid traces considered in the state of well.
"If we have students that are using and the parents aren’t aware of it, we want to constrain them aware of it," Alexander said.
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