Trinity students received the news in the spring of 2015 that all students would be subject to random drug testing during the school year.  This announcement gained a lot of traction in the media and was a big topic of conversation among students. A year later, the program is viewed by many as an overwhelming success.

Trinity Principal Dan Zoeller was pleased with the program’s first-year results. He said, “I would consider the first year a great success. We’ve identified some young men who need help and whose parents would like to help them with some dangerous habits.”

Co-Director of Student Affairs Joe Henning echoed that view. Henning said, “If we can help one student — and I know we’ve helped more than one student — then it’s an effective program.”

Under the drug testing policy, a student who tests positive will continue to be tested in hopes of putting a stop to the harmful behavior. Zoeller said this plan proved to be effective.

He said, “Most kids who tested positive the first time did not test positive the second time. Some of them have tested negative twice since their first positive so that’s what we hope for, that’s what we want.”

Zoeller added that Trinity received “about half as many positives as we were told to expect. I think that speaks well for students and maybe just the process itself.”

Henning said that no student has been dismissed from Trinity since testing started, and the mandatory testing of a student who has an initial positive result will be stopped after he receives three clean results. A student who has had three straight clean tests would go back into the random draw.

There were mixed reactions among the student body when the policy was initially announced last year; however, now that the policy is in place, students have accepted it and been cooperative. 

Zoeller said, “I think they’ve been cooperative in the way I would expect them to be. We haven’t had any real issues with people denying the results. We’ve had no one refuse to be tested. I think it’s become part of what we do. Most students shrug their shoulders and just go on with it. It’s become a part of the daily routine.”

Reed Campana, a 2016 graduate, was one of the students to be randomly tested this past year. He outlined what his experience was like.

Campana said, “I sat down at a table with Mr. Henning and a lady from the drug testing company, and they told me that they were going to take a small sample of hair from the back of my head. I signed a few papers confirming that I was in fact the one tested.

“She then took the scissors and cut a small part of my hair. She put it into a sample bag and told me I was done. I was offered a Jolly Rancher in return and made my way back to advising. In total, the process took about five minutes. It did not detract from my study hall and was significantly easier than I thought.”

Rising sophomore Chris Kolibab also said the process was easy and painless. “Overall, I thought it was a nice, simple experience,” Kolibab said. “From the moment I walked into the testing room, they made sure I was comfortable and knowledgeable of what they were going to do.”

Cooperation has come not only from students, but also from parents.  Zoeller said, “We’ve had good cooperation from students and parents. Most parents are very grateful when they get the news. Some are surprised, some aren’t surprised – but they have been unanimous in their cooperation.“

The implementation of the drug testing program followed a five-year process of study and investigation. Zoeller said this involved visiting schools in St. Louis, Chicago and Memphis who have similar programs and getting their feedback. Trinity also talked to students and parents, and did ample research before beginning testing.

As for why the program was put into place, Zoeller said it is an effort to keep Trinity students’ minds and bodies healthy during a very vulnerable and developmental time in their lives.

Zoeller said, “Even as we’ve been giving these tests this year, more studies have come out that back up the importance of teenagers keeping their brains and their pathways clear. We know that if students start using in their teenage years, especially if they start abusing, that they are 40 percent more likely to become addicted than an adult. If they waited to start until they were in their twenties, they’d have a lot better chance of escaping that addiction.

“Those new studies, those studies that continue to confirm in the epidemic drug problem that we have in the Louisville area now, just reinforce that it was a good decision.”

Since the start of the program, Trinity has received positive responses from students, parents and the community alike.

Zoeller said, “Since we’ve rolled it out, we’ve had a real positive response from prospective parents, parents who are thinking about sending their kids here, and from the general public and Trinity community.

“After the initial announcement was made, probably 95 percent of the feedback we got from alumni and from the community was supportive and positive. There were some people that didn’t like it, but a 95 percent success rate or positive response – I’d take that on anything.”

There was some speculation that this program would be a big cost for Trinity, but according to Zoeller, this is not the case. Zoeller said the tests are very affordable.

Henning believes that the small price tag is worth the results. He said, “In terms of cost, it’s not about the financial cost of it. It’s about helping students in as many ways as possible to make the best decisions in living a healthy lifestyle, and I think this program helps with this in several ways. I believe in it firmly, and I will continue to believe that it is an effective and useful thing to do.”

As for 2016-17, there won’t be any immediate changes to the program other than the number of tests administered. Zoeller said there will be an increase in the number of tests next year because “we saw the value of it this year.”

In regards to the long term, Zoeller said that one day Trinity hopes to test the entire student body. He said, “What we hope to do eventually is to test everyone. We hope to get to that point. There are schools that test every student at least once, maybe twice, during the school year. That would be ideal, but those are schools that are not as big as we are. It would, of course, be a bigger expense if we had more tests, so we’ll gradually get there.”

Zoeller believes the testing program is a testament to how much the administration cares about its students. He hopes it will lead students down the right path while they are at Trinity and after they graduate.

“We just want to give our guys here at Trinity a safe start,” Zoeller said. “We know that when they get into college or they become adults, we’re not going to be following them there. But we’re giving them hopefully a window, a period of time for their brains to develop healthily, so they have a better shot in their adult life. We care very much about our students while they’re here, and we care a lot about them beyond Trinity.”