Pubdate: Wed, 30 Apr 2014
Source: Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH)
Copyright: 2014 The Plain Dealer
Contact: http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/letter-to-editor/
Website: http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/342
Author: Patrick O'Donnell

ST. ED'S PRESIDENT IS BROTHER OF HEAD OF THE DRUG TESTING COMPANY USED
BY ST. ED'S, ST. IGNATIUS AND GILMOUR ACADEMY

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The student drug testing that will start at Gilmour
Academy and at St. Edward and St. Ignatius high schools has a close
family connection: St. Edward President James Kubacki's brother,
Raymond, is head of the testing company.

Raymond Kubacki, a St. Ignatius graduate, has been President and CEO
of Psychemedics Corporation since 1991. That connection was not
mentioned to students, or in letters to parents of the three schools
when they announced the testing on Monday.

Officials at all three schools said this morning that James Kubacki
has been up front about any possible conflict of interest throughout
discussions between the schools. The boards of all three schools, they
said, were fully aware of the connection well before each school
separately selected Psychemedics.

Combined, the three contracts will pay Psychemedics close to $120,000
for the initial testing of the nearly 3,000 high school students at
the three schools in the fall. Additional randomized tests will cost
about $40 per student.

"The short answer is Gilmour was very much aware of that connection
from the beginning and it was never an issue," said Gilmour spokesman
Devin Schlickmann.

Lisa Metro, spokesperson for St. Ignatius, said her school's board
knew of the connection early on, as well.

"There was full disclosure from when we first started looking at them
(Psychemedics)," Metro said.

She said students and parents weren't told immediately of the
connection because the schools wanted to focus on more important issues.

"How we picked the company isn't of interest to high school boys," she
said. "They're more interested in how it's going to play out to them."

James Kubacki said that because his brother worked in the testing
field, he formed a committee at St. Edward to study testing and the
choices of companies.

"From Day One, I told them this was my brother's company," the St.
Edward's president said.

Schlickmann, who worked for St. Ed's until this summer, said he was at
St. Ed's board meetings in which Kubacki mentioned the connection and
would recuse himself from any votes.

Gilmour Head of School Robert Lavelle is also a member of the St. Ed's
board of trustees and knew of the connection from those meetings,
Schlickmann said.

All three Catholic schools told students and parents Monday that they
were starting testing of all students in the fall in an attempt to
prevent addiction and to benefit students' health.

All students at the high school level will have hair samples tested at
the start of school. Then each school will have randomized followup
tests throughout the year. Officials at all three schools said the
tests are not meant to be punitive, but will identify students using
drugs for additional testing, counseling and treatment.

Each school said any discipline would be handled on a case-by-case
basis, based on the levels of addiction, if any, and students'
participation and effort in addressing the problem.

All three schools said that a key factor in choosing Psychemedics was
their decision to test student hair instead of urine, because hair
tests can show drug use as far as 90 days earlier.

Metro, Schlickmann and Kubacki said other companies were under
consideration until the schools decided to use hair, at which point
Psychemedics was a clear choice. At the time, they said, other
companies did not have Food and Drug Administration approval to test
hair for all the drugs the schools wanted to look for.

"They were the only lab with full FDA clearance to do the testing we
were looking for," Metro said.

Kubacki said the schools did not talk to other companies about testing
hair.

"There's not that many other companies out there," he
said.

He said a local testing company contacted the schools about a month
ago, but the schools had already been working with Psychemedics for
months and did not want to shift. Psychemedics is located outside of
Boston, Mass.

Raymond Kubacki said his company does mostly workplace testing and
clients include several Fortune 500 companies. It also does hair
testing for about 200 schools, nationally and internationally. He
declined to provide a list of them.

He said his company has a patented method of extracting drugs from
hair that provides five to 10 times as many positive results as urine
testing. When that screening suggests drug use, he said, the company
does a second spectrometry test to confirm use.

He said he avoided talking to the schools and had a company employee
handle discussions to prevent conflict of interest.

"There's absolutely no conflict of interest here," he said.