If you want to be a member of an athletic team at Richmond Senior High School, be ready to be drug tested.

Richmond County Schools is among a handful of school systems across the state which drug tests its student-athletes.

“This was the second full year we have done it,” said RSHS athletics director Hal Shuler. “I think it has been a great deterrent. In fact, I think there may have been some kids that haven’t played because they knew they were going to be drug tested.”

Richmond County Schools Superintendent Dr. George Norris feels it is important to have the high school’s student athletes be held accountable for their actions on and off the field.

“We believe it’s important to hold our student athletes to certain standards,” Dr. Norris said. “Our athletes are often looked up to as role models by a number of younger children in our community and it’s important that they maintain strong academics and positive habits. We expect excellence from them in every aspect of their lives, not just on the field or in the gymnasium.”

According to the school system’s Athletic Participation Policy, “A minimum of 10 student athletes/or 10 percent of those participating on an athletic team at any given time will be randomly chosen to be drug tested on a schedule to be determined by the superintendent, or his designee.”

Shuler said there is usually between 40 to 50 student athletes drug tested each month. He added the drug company randomly selects the student athletes and sends him the list a day or two before the tests.

If a student athlete has a positive drug test, then per the Athletic Participation Policy, “If the student wishes to be reinstated to the team, or regain his/her athletic eligibility for the current school year, he/she must submit, at his/her own expense, to a second drug test (administered by an organization approved by the school district) within 30 days of the original positive test. If the athlete fails to provide a negative drug test within the prescribed 30-day limit he/she becomes ineligible for reinstatement to that team, and ineligible for athletic participation for the duration of the current school year.”

Once a student athlete is reinstated following a positive drug test, they are referred to counseling and subject to a drug test at any time during the current school year at the discretion of the school’s athletic department. And if they have another positive test, then they are again ineligible to participate in sports for the remainder of the school year.

In the two years RSHS has been testing for drugs, Shuler said there have been four positive drug tests each year.

Despite the low percentage of positive drug tests, Shuler is hoping to toughen the Athletic Participation Policy because the current language refers to a school year rather than the number of failed drug tests. So the beginning of a new school year wipes the failed drug tests from the books.

While Dr. Norris and Shuler see the benefit of testing its athletes, the N.C. High School Athletic Association supports educating the athletes on the pitfalls of drug use over random testing and has not required mandatory drug testing of athletes.

“We encourage drug education rather than drug testing,” Rick Strunk, Associate Executive Director of the NCHSAA said. “No. 1, who is going to fund the drug testing? And No. 2, what do you screen for? Local rules would probably be more restrictive than any rules we may hand down. In Wake County, there is a minimum GPA (grade point average) a student athlete must maintain. We don’t have one statewide.”

Even though the drug testing is not a current NCHSAA requirement, Shuler still feels it helps Richmond Senior’s student athletes make good choices off the field.

“Kids are kids, they are going to try things,” Shuler said. “But on a Friday night, when they may get peer pressure to try something, this gives them an out. They can say ‘I can’t because I may get drug tested at school.’”