SCS adds kits to check for illegal substances

Oct. 21—At its Tuesday work session, the Sampson County Board of Education discussed the arrival of substance test kits, which will be going to county schools.

In his announcements, Superintendent Dr. Jamie King stated, "We shared with all of you a few weeks ago about some test kits that we were ordering, so we just wanted to share that those did come in. This is for our principals and schools to test any substances that they feel may be illegal or contain illegal substances."

This comes as schools nationwide figure out how to deal with an increase in students bringing things like vapes to school with them. "With the new code of conduct the state passed, there are, I think, eight different codes that schools can use for vapes, edibles, things like that," King explained.

"Some of them are drug-related, some are non-drug related, but as a school, we have no idea if it contains illegal substances or if it doesn't. For instance, If you have a tobacco vape or a CBD or marijuana vape," he continued.

"It's not that we're testing kids. I want that to be very clear," King said. "We're not testing students. We're testing substances that the students have — so you can test the vape pen, or you can test the gummies."

As far as operating the test kit goes, King said, "It's just a swab like an ear swab, it has some chemicals on it, and you swab the substance, you put it on a little card, and then if it turns bright red, it shows that it's a positive substance."

He continued, "We took some out and tested them, and it was very simple. I mean, it was not difficult at all. So we will be giving them out to the principals so they can better understand what they are if students have illegal substances."

Other measures are being tested as options to curb potential vaping, in particular. Board member Sonya Powell inquired about a system she had been made aware of, which detects vaping in bathrooms. "We now have two vape detectors that we are piloting," King replied. "They have been installed, but we're still waiting for us to really get trained and know how they work."

"They are not cameras," He stressed, "I want to be very clear here. It is not recording students in the bathroom in any way whatsoever."

As far as the way the system detectors work, he said, "In a vape, it has a heating element. So the technology detects that heating element when it's activated because the temperature gets very high in order to heat the oil inside, which is what causes the smoke."

Going a step further, referencing the testing kits and the vape detectors, Board member Kim Schmidlin asked, "What happens if someone has a vape pen and it tests positive?"

King explained, "If the test is positive, then it would be a completely different rule violation because now it goes into a reportable offense as an illegal substance versus tobacco. So, we would follow our district code of conduct, going through those recommendations."

The board also voted in favor of a recommendation to cancel its regular board meeting, which had been scheduled for Oct. 23.

The decision to cancel the Oct. 23 meeting was made because the board had no agenda items other than personnel approval, which the board voted to go ahead and carry out during the work session.

Schmidlin wanted to be sure this was acceptable as it pertains to the meetings being open to the public for comment. Schmidlin asked, "So, just to be sure, we don't have to announce that in advance?" She was told no.

"This meeting is open to the public, so they can come to this work session and make public comments at this session just as they would in the normal session. So we didn't feel like everyone needed to meet, and didn't want Union to have to get ready for us just to approve personnel," King stated.

The next meeting of the Sampson County Board of Education will be the work session on Nov. 21 in the auditorium at the SCS offices.