Albuquerque, Rio Rancho high schools were tested for drugs. Which school passed the test?

Of the 24 public high schools in Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, only one could pass a drug test of sorts.

The New Mexico Environment Department on Wednesday released the results after testing wastewater for drugs at area schools, showing only New Futures — a school for pregnant teens and those with kids — came up clean.

The department’s data found Del Norte and Nex Gen Academy had the worst results, testing positive for 12 substances, from illicit drugs such as cocaine to prescription opiates.

Twenty-one of the 24 schools, or 88%, tested positive for cocaine and/or its byproduct and 17, or 30%, tested positive for fentanyl and/or its byproduct. Heroin, which has been declining for years in the drug trade as it is replaced by fentanyl, was not found in any of the wastewater.

Fentanyl and many of the other drugs tested — oxycodone, codeine and others — can be obtained and used legally. Additionally, methamphetamine and amphetamine, which showed up in the results of all but two schools, can be a result of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder medications.

“This should not be interpreted as something that is a school issue. I think that schools are a microcosm of the environments they live in,” state Health Secretary Patrick Allen said in a briefing Wednesday. “And so this really is an indication, I think, of broader community exposure and we should look at it in those kinds of terms.”

State officials suggested placing more drug counselors at schools and launching awareness campaigns, but they did not outline any concrete plans to utilize the test results, which are being gathered statewide as part of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s health order targeting gun violence.

During the briefing, officials also acknowledged the data’s shortcomings: that it does not reveal drug amounts, only captured a single day and included results from anyone who used a school bathroom, not just students and staff.

For the testing process, crews opened sewer manholes outside schools to collect wastewater every 15 minutes, sending the samples to a lab for analysis. The Environment Department said it has already tested almost three dozen other school districts, including Santa Fe and Las Cruces, and will release those results at a later date.

“Having that knowledge allows us to now ask that question: What can we do about that, disrupting that community impact that those drugs are having? How do we get into those communities and have intervention opportunities with both parents and educators and community leaders?” New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney said. “Just because what we see in Albuquerque and Rio Rancho does not mean that that’s going to be what we see in communities elsewhere.”

Arsenio Romero, secretary of Public Education, said the data will help them “have those direct conversations with the superintendents, with principals, with teachers, and also, of course, with the municipalities and counties to be able to create that plan together.”

Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Scott Elder said the results “really just confirmed something that we already knew.” He said students have been self-reporting drug use for decades through the Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey.

Elder emphasized that the data did not isolate students, staff or anyone in particular.

“Really, what it showed us was that somebody used drugs somewhere, and then used our restroom,” he said. “It doesn’t identify who, it doesn’t identify where and it certainly, what I think is tricky, is it can’t be correlated to anything. You can’t say, ‘Well this school is worse than that school.’”

Elder said he expected most of the results but the finding of cocaine, or its byproduct, at almost all of the schools was surprising. He said he believed alcohol and cannabis were the most prevalent substances used by students.

Elder said APS is already doing its part to combat substance use in schools, offering drug counseling and education in every one of the high schools tested. Elder said it’s up to the state and local leaders to provide treatment to young people — often hard to come by in the state — and intercept drugs before they make it into the hands of teenagers.

“It isn’t necessarily up to the schools ... to solve the problem,” he said.

Elder added , “If the answer is the schools should solve it, it’s not going to get solved, because all the issues revolve outside of the schools’ purview.”