Dorrie Pacoe holds a photo of her son, Alex Pacoe, who died from a overdose in January 2017 at their Butler home.

Butler School District enacted a new drug testing policy this summer after its first year of collecting data on drug use in its schools thorough an annual state survey called the Pennsylvania Youth Survey, or PAYS. The data collected in several cases show the district's students use illegal substances at similar or only slightly greater levels than county or state averages.

But it was not the figures in the PAYS survey that inspired the board to act, said Bill Halle, a school board member and one of the drug testing policy's firmest backers. Rather, he said, it was the face behind one particular overdose death.

Halle said the death of a student who had been using a drug helped spur the board's response. He described the student as athletic and popular, defying stereotypes of drug use.

Coroner records for 2017 show one opioid related death among people of high school age. In January of 2017, Butler High School student Alex Pacoe died and tested positive for a mixture of heroin and fentanyl, records show.

Dorrie Pacoe, Alex's mother, said she met with the school board in the weeks after Alex's death. She was overjoyed to see a drug testing policy finally implemented.

“I wish it would've been in place years ago,” Dorrie Pacoe said.

Pick up Sunday's Butler Eagle to find out the results of the study.