High school drug policy tweaked, three strikes you're out for extracurricular activities

High school baseball players must spit out their chewing tobacco or leave the field according to a new state policy.

The same goes for a student participating in any extra-curricular activity --from drama to debate and basketball to baseball -- using alcohol, drugs or tobacco.

Carson High School vice principal Fred Perdomo and principal Glen Adair explained the new policy outlined by the Nevada Interscholastic Athletic Association to trustees at Tuesday's school board meeting.

"You have to adjust your rules to make sure you're in alignment with all NIAA and state regulations," Perdomo said. "That can happen every year."

The administrators also explained the school's new drug policy which calls for stricter punishment for students who sell or attempt to sell drugs on campus.

"No sooner do you have your behavior codes woven, than someone does something you didn't think of and you realize you should have done things differently," Adair said. "Every year you have to reweave or reorganize that plan."

Students participating in extra-curricular activities will return to a three-strikes-you're-out drug policy. Any student participating in those activities who are caught using drugs, including alcohol or tobacco, will be forever prohibited from participating in them after the third offense.

The policy applies to students using the drugs on or off school campus and during or outside of school hours.

The first offense would carry a six-week suspension from extra-curricular activities, reduced to two weeks if that student enrolled in a drug and alcohol treatment program.

The second offense would mean a 90-suspension from extra-curricular activities.

Adair said he expects the same standards to apply to his coaches while they are working.

The school's new drug plan calls for a mandatory 90-day suspension for any student selling or attempting to sell drugs on the high school campus. The policy also allows administrators to determine "intent to sell" without waiting for a judge's ruling.

The 90-day suspension would be served at Opportunity High School.

High school administrators began a reorganization of the all-encompassing drug policy after a large cache of marijuana was discovered inside a brown lunch sack on the school's campus in March.

Inside the sack, the marijuana was separated evenly by weight into five individual plastic sandwich bags.

"The judge said it was obviously meant for distribution," Adair explained. "That was something we'd never dealt with before, so we needed to adjust our rules to be congruent with the state law for distribution."

Until that time, any drug offense carried a 10- to 90-day suspension which could be reduced to four days if the student enrolled in the drug counseling program, Insight, at the Ron Woods Family Resource Center.

The policy applies only to Carson High School but school board president Bob Crowell said he has also requested discussion of a districtwide drug policy at Saturday's board retreat.