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Local News
"I hope it leads to the superintendent and the board having support to put some kind of random drug testing at our schools," said YUHSD Superintendent Tim Foist. Currently, no YUHSD schools do random drug testing. Foist said that would have to be implemented by the governing board. The district has not set any policy or plan on drug testing yet, but Foist said testing would preferably be voluntary for parents and students and would be done at random times throughout the school year. Research by the superintendent's office has shown that it costs roughly $30,000 to do random testing in comparable school districts. The idea for random testing comes after four unidentified members of Kofa's varsity football team have been indefinitely suspended from the team for steroid use. At this time, coach Kevin Moore said the incident is confined just to those players. However, administrators, teachers and parents are concerned that the steroid problem may go beyond the Kofa football team. Moore added that team morale is improving but the issue of steroids is one he is going to have to start discussing more often with his players. "It's hard, but no one ever said it was going to be easy," Moore said. "It's something that we're always going to be talking about now." Kofa Principal Gina Thompson held a public meeting at Kofa High Wednesday night to talk about the steroid problem. About 300 parents and students attended. Many were student athletes or parents who had children on Kofa teams. "It's no secret what's going on at Kofa High School," Thompson said at the meeting. "We know that we have an issue. We know the issue is rampant across the nation, and the issue is steroids." According to Thompson, the investigation of the Yuma Police Department in conjunction with the school showed the players had purchased the steroids in Mexico, crossing the border to Los Algodones, Baja Calif. "Our kids have ready access to this, more than other places, because of our proximity to the border," said Will Slater, a parent who attended the meeting. "The problem isn't just here in Kofa ... kids feel they need to use steroids to compete with the kids in Phoenix." Kathy Hoover, Kofa's athletic trainer, said she deals with the issue of steroid and supplement use a lot as student athletes search for ways to get bigger, faster. "It's a hidden issue," Hoover said. "It's an issue that a lot of times falls behind the scenes, unless you catch the red flags.”  |
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