An Orange Beach resident is working to launch a community-based intervention program aimed at supporting students who test positive for drugs under the school system’s hair follicle testing policy, offering an outlet she says was missing when her own family faced a similar crisis.
Neelli Faulkner said the idea grew out of a painful personal experience. Her son, then a student at a high school in central Alabama, tested positive during a school-administered drug test. He was subsequently placed in an alternative school alongside students who had been suspended for other offenses, and Faulkner said she watched him spiral in the aftermath. He was eventually incarcerated at age 24.
At the time, Faulkner said she could not find resources to help her navigate the situation or get her son the support he needed. Now living in Orange Beach, she wants to make sure other parents facing the same circumstances have somewhere to turn.
Faulkner has already recruited more than 20 people to help build the program, which would focus on two main goals: keeping students who lose extracurricular privileges from sitting idle during their suspension, and creating mentorship opportunities that involve both students and their parents.
“I just don’t want another parent to have to go through something like what we went through,” Faulkner said. “I have the utmost respect for the superintendent and the board and everything they do. I just want there to be an additional resource in place for parents to talk to, bounce ideas off of and help kids hopefully realize the path they might be going down.”
The push comes as Orange Beach Schools’ relatively new drug testing policy continues to draw scrutiny from some residents, who have raised concerns about both the accuracy of hair follicle testing and student privacy. Under the policy, students who test positive lose access to extracurricular activities as well as their on-campus driving and parking privileges.
Faulkner said she personally has reservations about the school system testing students at all, and she does not support the specific method being used. But she said her greater concern is what happens to students once they are sidelined from sports, clubs and other activities.
“When these kids get suspended from those extracurricular activities, it’s the perfect opportunity for them to have idle hands and potentially get involved more with whatever they were doing that led to them being suspended,” Faulkner said.
Faulkner initially hoped her organization could formally partner with Orange Beach Schools to give families a structured resource alongside the district’s policy. She brought the proposal to Superintendent Randy Wilkes and several board members, but Wilkes ultimately ruled out an official partnership.
“We appreciate those in the community wishing to assist those in need of intervention,” Wilkes wrote in an email responding to the proposal. “As this matter relates to the board’s drug policy we cannot make a recommendation for use.”
Faulkner said that after speaking with Wilkes about his decision, she came to understand his reasoning and does not fault the district for declining to formally endorse the program. Even without a school system partnership, she said several other organizations across Baldwin County have expressed interest in helping fund the effort going forward.
Faulkner said she plans to continue building out the program’s structure and recruiting volunteers in the coming months, with the goal of having a functioning support network in place for students and families who need it.