newgrowerNY

Should drug dogs be in our schools?
02.18.07|thedesertsun

For two years, Darlene Gillispie petitioned school administrators, board members and city leaders to allow drug-sniffing dogs to search school campuses - all to no avail.

"Our board, our district, our administration doesn't want the public to know we have a problem," said Gillispie, whose four children all attended Palm Desert High School in the Desert Sands Unified School District.

"It's so frustrating that they seem to care more about the reputation of our school than they do about the welfare of our children," she said, giving up on the fight this year.

Others didn't. Hundreds of parents have continued to clamor for drug-sniffing dogs in their children's schools until the issue hit a head at a small community meeting last month. In two weeks, the Desert Sands Unified School District board will take up the issue publicly.

Board members say these dogs could be one piece of an overall drug prevention program, but there needs to be more involvement from the community. And before any dog starts sniffing around campus, board members say they have a host of privacy and legal issues to consider.

"Drug use by kids in the community - that's the core issue," said Board President Amy Ammons, a former counselor at the Betty Ford Center, the addiction treatment facility in Rancho Mirage.

"We have to go to the underlying issue. This is just one, small intervention. It can be very effective, but it's not the problem-solver," said Ammons, a board member for 15 years.

A national problem

Like their peers across the country and also in the Coachella Valley, Desert Sands officials and community officials are battling an issue that's hidden in lockers, passed between classes and packed in trunks of cars.

Last week, the Office of National Drug Control Policy released a study showing that in 2005, 17.4 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 reported trying marijuana once.
Marijuana also was the drug of choice for 31.5 percent of high-school seniors surveyed in a University of Michigan study in 2006.

"The prevalence of drugs and alcohol - it's just becoming more of a factor in our community as a whole and that spills over into the schools," said Kim Williams, co-chair of the Alcohol and Drug Awareness Committee of the Parent-Teacher Organization at Palm Desert High School.

In 2005-06, Desert Sands Unified School District reported an average of 51.5 suspensions per high school for drug-related offenses. That's the highest average in the Coachella Valley.

In the Coachella Valley Unified School District, officials reported an average of 31.7 suspensions per high school for the same offenses, and the Palm Springs Unified School District had an average of 29.6 suspensions per high school.

Schools report the suspension and expulsion data by category to the state Department of Education.

At the middle school level, Palm Springs Unified topped the list with an average of 15.25 suspensions per middle school for drug-related offenses.

Coachella Valley Unified had an average of 14.5 suspensions, and Desert Sands Unified had an average of 11 suspensions.

Gary Johnson, a Palm Desert High parent, said schools need to take control - at least during school hours.

"There's no reason why a 15-year-old girl goes to high school and has to put up with someone trying to sell her drugs at a public school," said Johnson, who pushed Desert Sands board members last month to discuss the idea of drug-sniffing dogs.

Dogs used nationwide

H.D. "Ben" Bennett, president of the North American Police Work Dog Association based in Ohio, said several states, if not all, include school districts that use drug dogs. Many others also use explosive-detector dogs, he said.
"It's more a prevention thing than anything," Bennett said. "The kids (are) a lot more reluctant to bring them (drugs) onto school property."

None of the Coachella Valley's districts now use drug dogs, though some have used them sparingly in the past.

Cody McCormick, a senior at Palm Desert High, said he thinks the threat of drug dogs probably would be enough to persuade students to leave illicit items at home.

"People get scared easily," he said. "But there's always those guys that are really gutsy."

Linly Duenow, also a senior, said she wouldn't mind the dogs searching her things.

"It would worry me more with just the safety of the dogs on campus," she said.

McCormick added: "The only people who would be against it would be the ones with bongs in their cars."

Bennett said drug dogs can search classrooms, hallways, common areas, parking lots and lockers, but never students themselves.

"You're going to get one person here or there that thinks you're violating their rights by running the dogs, but you're not," he said. "They're just checking the air."

If a dog "alerts on," or stops at, a bag, locker or other property, school officials locate the owner and complete a further search privately.

"They don't go in and just break in kids' lockers because a dog alerted," he said.

Law enforcement officials often leave during additional searching because they have an obligation to arrest if drugs are found, he said.

"It's up to the school officials to deem what's necessary."

Dogs as deterrent

Ten districts in Riverside County, including the alternative schools through the Riverside County Office of Education, use random dog searches to keep drugs off of school grounds.
"It's more of a deterrent," said Cami Berry, project director of the safe schools unit for the Riverside County Office of Education. "That's the goal - don't bring it to school. We're hoping we don't catch anybody."

At Temecula Unified School District, officials have done random searches for eight years. And while they admit they'll never know how many students didn't bring drugs when they otherwise would have, they are impressed with the results.

"There's no doubt in my mind that this has had an effect," said Mike Runyen, director of child welfare and attendance for Temecula Valley Unified. "I know it's not something that's going to solve drug problems but we have less of a drug problem than we would without these things."

Dogs have found everything from aspirin in a purse to a road flare in a car trunk, Runyen said.

Once, at a Temecula Valley school, a dog tracked down an unopened beer can, wrapped in a towel and pushed behind the speakers in the trunk of a car in the parking lot, he said.

Runyen admitted he faced some opposition initially from parents, who felt that the dogs violated their children's privacy rights.

Never, he said, has he heard of such an outpouring of parent support like that in Desert Sands.

Parent-Teacher Organizations here are circulating letters and e-mails, lobbying support for the idea. They also are urging parents to attend the March 6 meeting at which Desert Sands board members plan to talk about the possibilities of drug dogs.

Board President Ammons admitted it that the issue "took off" after she announced she would put it on a future agenda.

In the past, she said, support for drug dogs "came as a low-key community rumble."

Now, the parents are howling.

Buzzby

Drug dogs are a great deterrent to people bringing drugs to school, a place where they absolutely don't belong. Sniffing the air is in no way a violation of anybody's privacy. On top of that, when a minor child is in school, the school serves in loco parentis, giving it most of the rights of parents. This doesn't afford a lot of privacy to the student.

It's unfortunate that peer pressure usually prevents students who are so annoyed from reporting this kind of activity.

This also addresses an issue of canine unemployment. When a human can't find a job he can go on welfare. When a canine can't find a job he often gets executed. These drug-sniffers are usually rescued from animal "shelters" where they'd be put to death if not adopted out. To me that's a lot more important than some pimply pinhead's "right" to deal dope in school.

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reggie_the_dog

Yes but, dogs go after users to, and when your parents give you permission to smoke cannabis, why should the school use a dog to find the joint in your pocket that you are going to smoke at lunch?

Buzzby

Wrong. Drug-sniffing dogs aren't allowed around students. They check lockers and bags.

Because it's against the law? And kids, please don't tell the authorities that your parents gave you permission to smoke weed. They'll go to jail and you'll end up in foster care.

I can't see any excuse for a child smoking weed during the school day unless there's a medical necessity. Experimenting with drugs is a normal part of adolescence. Becoming drug-dependent is not.

BillieBudd

Reggie....we are talking high school students here (or maybe Middle School in some instances). I don't like the idea of the dogs myself, but school is no place for weed, booze, or any other mind altering material...even caffeine in the extreme...