DRUG-SNIFFING DOGS CONSIDERED FOR KHSD

Despite Legal Questions, Trustee Favors 'Deterrence'

On any given day, in any given classroom, students could be told to
leave their belongings and step outside. Enter a friendly Labrador
with a nose for alcohol, drugs and gunpowder.

So it is in schools around Kern County, and so it could be for the
Kern High School District if Trustee Ken Mettler gets his way.

He will suggest at the Feb. 4 board meeting that the district hire a
canine drug detecting company. The contract could be worth more than
$55,000 annually.

"I think we look at prevention like this or we may end up some day
losing control and having it become endemic to the system," Mettler
said. The district has 500 drug-related expulsions every year.

At his behest, KHSD staff explored the "deterrence" program for the
soon to be 18-campus district.

And while findings laid out at the January board meeting didn't
endorse the idea, Mettler is moving forward with the campaign he says
will keep schools safer, reduce drug-related expulsions and
potentially save the school money by keeping more kids in class.
School funding relies on average daily attendance.

Several of Kern's public districts and private schools employ dogs:
Delano, Taft, Garces and Bakersfield Christian. Fresno Unified uses
dogs, and Los Angeles has its own.

Houston-based Interquest Detection Canines serves 400 California
districts, said Vice President Mike Ferdinand. And Kontraband
Interdiction and Detection Services, or KIDS, headquartered in
Modesto, serves 100, said President Steven Essler.

Legal matters

But a legal question emerged in KHSD's review.

In 2000, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer and Deputy Attorney
General Anthony S. Da Vigo wrote an opinion declaring that while
students have more limited personal rights than average citizens, the
act of separating them from their personal effects to be "sniffed"
would constitute an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment.

Schools Legal Service has advised the district of this, said Alan
Paradise, KHSD's director of pupil personnel, but the dogs could
sniff lockers and cars in the student parking lot.

Opinions don't have legal binding, said Al Harris, associate counsel
for Schools Legal Service, but courts can use them as guidelines.

And it appears that no one has challenged this in the courts, so
companies continue to search bookbags and coats left behind by
students who were told to do so. Just 2 percent to 5 percent of
districts using KIDS and Interquest opt out of separating students
from their belongings, both companies said.

The legal quandary doesn't impact private schools. Since they're not
governmental entities, they have greater leeway to impinge on
individual rights for a good purpose than a public school might be
able to, Harris said.

Beyond the foggy legal area, K-9 companies sell their four-legged
drug detectors to districts on the safety factor.

Essler said his dogs have found guns and bombs in bags, and he would
much rather answer to parents who question whether student rights
were violated than to parents whose child has been injured.

What is success?

But local schools say they are sold on deterrence and are happy when
nothing is found. And that makes success difficult to quantify. How
does one track students who decide not to bring drugs or alcohol to
school? Too many variables impact expulsion rates, said Dean McGee,
West High School principal.

Everything from boundary changes to different approaches by different
administrators to a new class of students can make a difference, and
all this changes year to year, month to month, week to week, he said.

But Delano High School Principal Richard Smithey credits the dogs for
his school's 50 percent drop in drug-related expulsions.

In the 1999-2000 school year, the first with the dogs, Delano had 14
drug-related expulsions and similar numbers the year before. But
since then, expulsions were cut in half, Smithey said. And to some,
success is more than what can be tracked.

Dogs at Garces haven't found much in this, their first, and President
John Fanucchi is thrilled. He thinks the dogs are very effective as a
deterrent, and he's "very pleased and happy" the dogs have not
detected anything.

And at Bakersfield Christian, dogs found Advil, expelled gunshot
casings and a fermented sports drink, said President Dan Cole.

"Does it solve all the problems? No, it's impossible," he
said.

This isn't the first time KHSD has explored the issue. Lee Vasquez,
principal at South High, said that when he was KHSD's pupil services
director from 2000 to 2005, drug-sniffing dogs were considered.
"There is no real evidence that it's a deterrent," Vasquez said.

And others, who feel the district is doing a good job already, say
the dogs will do more to damage the educational atmosphere than deter
bad behavior.

"I want to support my teachers and the 99 percent of my kids doing
the right thing every day," Bakersfield High School Principal David
Reese said.

"We're not dogs, we're teachers. We're qualified to ID kids under the
influence."

But some Bakersfield students who see perhaps more keenly than anyone
what drugs are doing to schools said dogs may bring some reprieve.

"I think it's a good idea, but it still intrudes on students'
rights," said 17-year-old senior Elvin Rajan.

Said junior Alison Limway, 16, "There are too many young people
ruining their lives with drugs, and this might help a little."

But senior Amber Ford, 17, said the dogs wouldn't stop kids from
bringing drugs to school.