The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“Representing your school is a privilege”
By Kendra Walker
The Gunnison Watershed School District board of directors is considering developing a policy regarding a drug testing program for extracurricular participants. During the April 8 school board meeting, superintendent Dr. Leslie Nichols shared that administrators are looking into such a policy.
“We’re really hoping to launch a random drug testing program for our athletes and club participants to support our values around substance-free schools,” said Nichols. “We run into a lot of enforcement stress around reports and social media evidence of kids consuming alcohol or other drugs outside of school hours that becomes an issue for participation in athletics. We have a code of conduct and our expectation is that kids are not using drugs, ever. Representing your school is a privilege. We would like to move in the direction of random drug testing as a part of that.”
Nichols explained that the policy would most likely entail randomly testing a percentage of high school and potentially middle school participants in clubs and athletics each week. “We’re not testing every kid,” she said. “It must be completely random, and you cannot get a rumor that so-and-so was drinking or using drugs last weekend and then say it’s their turn.”
Nichols noted that the district does not currently have an extracurricular drug policy, nor does the Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB), but the district is checking with other districts that do random drug testing for insights.
She also said the policy would align well with the Gunnison County Substance Abuse Prevention Project (GCSAPP), which randomly drug tests students as part of the free Choice Pass program. With Choice Pass, students in grades 6 through 12 are asked to stay substance-free and commit to a healthy lifestyle and in return receive a discounted ski pass and other memberships in the community.
The board was interested and directed Nichols to continue pursuing the potential policy. “Anything to reduce drug use for kids is positive,” said board member Mandy Roberts.
“There is good evidence from these programs that affect the decrease of use,” said Nichols. “This has been a desire for a while because the enforcement is really hard. We want all students to be drug-free and these kids are opting into a special program that we are providing.”
