Local WBC super featherweight champion Oscar Valdez tested positive for the banned substance Phentermine, putting his first title defense against Robson Conceicao on Sept. 10 at Casino Del Sol’s AVA Amphitheater in jeopardy.

The Nogales-born boxer found out about his positive test result on Monday after recently submitting to a random drug test by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA).

Valdez’s attorney Patrick English said his client unknowingly took the banned substance while using a certain type of herbal tea, according to a 13-page letter submitted to the WBC, Top Rank, VADA and the Pascua Yaqui Athletic Commission, the governing body in charge of professional and amateur combat sports events on tribal land.

English also states in the letter that the stimulant Phentermine—a substance used for obesity and appetite suppression—is not considered a banned substance by the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) unless it’s present in the fighter’s system the day before a contest.

Team Valdez, WBC and boxing promotional company Top Rank are set to have a Zoom meeting today to discuss the issue. If the WBC finds Valdez at fault for the positive test result, he could be stripped of his WBC super featherweight title.

The Pascua Yaqui Athletic Commission is also set to discuss the matter this week and will ultimately have the final say on whether Valdez vs. Conceicao will still take place at AVA Amphitheater on Sep. 10.

WASHINGTON – Standardized test scores in Arizona fell across the board last school year, as COVID-19 upended learning through the year and led to a sharp drop in the number of students taking the tests, the Arizona Department of Education said.

Results released by the department Friday showed that 38% of students got “satisfactory” grades on the language test and 31% passed the math test in 2021, compared to 42% for both tests in 2019, the last year for which test results are available.

The department warned that results from the pandemic year “need to be viewed with extreme caution” when compared to other years.

“When considering the results of students who did take the test, it is important to remember the learning disruptions from COVID-19 that may have impacted student learning in unforeseen ways,” the department said in a note released with the data.

It also pointed out that “a significant number of students did not take the test” last year. Close to 740,000 students took both tests in 2019, but just 520,912 took the math test last school year and 511,679 took the language skills test.

The AzM2 test, formerly known as AzMerit, and the Multi-State Alternate Assessment test are given to students in grades three through eight and grade 10. Besides measuring student progress, the AzM2 scores are typically used by the Education Department to assign letter grades to state schools, ranking their performance against others in the state.

But state lawmakers last year suspended the use of the standardized tests for the ranking of schools, while still requiring that the test be administered to students. And Gov. Doug Ducey ordered that the students’ scores still be evaluated to “identify the extent of learning loss” during the pandemic year.

Despite concerns that school administrators and state officials can rely too heavily on standardized test scores to assess school performance, advocates said the results of last year’s tests could prove important.

“Standardized tests are an important piece of data, but outside of a pandemic it still doesn’t tell the full story,” said Erin Hart, senior vice president for Education Forward Arizona. “We over-relied on it as a state. It’s really the only data policymakers and people at the state level have, and it has its importance, but it’s not the end-all, be-all.”