Ep. 54 – Stopping Substance Abuse via Random Drug Testing: Administrative Team, Lacey Schools

Greg interviews an administrative panel from Lacey Township School District, including Superintendent Craig Wigley, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Vanessa Clark, and District Supervisor William Zylinski. The Lacey School District has recently addressed a hot topic by conducting random drug testing in their high school. While the school has always been aware of drug testing, they haven’t done random drug testing until fairly recently. Dr. Vanessa Clark explains when they first started discussing testing, only 19 other school districts in New Jersey were conducting random drug tests.

For the district, policy development was the most complicated and lengthy part of the process. “It took a full year of discussion, sit downs and policy development before we were ready for full implementation. January 2014 was our first random drug test,” says Vanessa.

For the administrative panel, hearing the student’s voice on the matter came first. The panel shares the other concerns they had prior to implementing the program. “Are we ready for this at our high school? Nobody in the community was willing to say, ‘We don’t need this.’ They were very concerned with how we were going to do [random drug screening],” says Craig.

As far as what kind of drugs the test covers, the panel says they stick to what the testing company suggests based upon national norms. That said, the tests are subject to change. “The company does research on suggested drugs, to see if they’re worth testing for. We can change [the drugs] we test for every year,” says Craig. Currently, the school uses a urine test and receives the results back three days after the test is issued.

Listen to the podcast to hear about the random drug test results and the tests’ impact on the district.

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