By Kathryn Reed

ZEPHYR COVE – The percentage of Douglas County School District students testing positive for drugs mirrors the national school district average of between 2 and 3 percent. DCSD was at 2.3 percent for the 2011-12 school year.

Of the 15 positive tests – and that could be one student testing positive more than once as was the case at Whittell High – all had marijuana in their system.

The data was released to the board at last week’s meeting.

All students participating in athletics or extracurricular activities are randomly tested. If someone refuses to be tested, that is considered a positive test and the student endures the same consequences. Consequences include being removed from the activity for the rest of the season, participating in a drug counseling program through Tahoe Youth & Family Services, and being subjected to follow-up drug tests.

The tests are looking for use of alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines (valium), cocaine, marijuana, methadone, expanded opiates like codeine, hydrocodone and oxycodone, phencyclidine, and propoxyphene (darvon).

The district has been mixing up the add-on tests. Not everyone gets all of those because of the expense. The additional drugs the district may test for are ecstacy, nicotine, ETG alcohol, anabolic steroids and spice.

Of the 776 tests administered last school year, there were 15 positive results and three who refused to take the test. Five the positives were from Whittell, with one student testing positive twice. Nine were from Douglas High, and one from Carson Valley Middle School.

In the 2010-11 school year, 1.3 percent of DCSD students tested positive or eight kids and in 2009-10, the first year of the program, 3 percent  or 17 students tested positive.

In other action:

• No one has offered to buy the old Kingsbury Middle School. It will continue to be on the market, with the board evaluating that strategy every quarter when it meets at the lake.

• The district collectively passed the federally mandated Adequate Yearly Progress. However, the district will no longer be subjected to AYP under No Child Left Behind because it will be working under the Nevada School Performance Framework.