DRUGS SEARCHES FAIL THE TEST

School Boards Should Protect Their Students' Rights

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board should stop its practice of
random drug searches using police canine units in its schools. The
searches, which are meant to provide a safe atmosphere for students,
violate students' privacy and send the wrong message about the role of
authority.

Since the late 1990s, most of Ottawa's high schools and junior high schools
have been subject to searches once or twice a year, based on the
availability of police units trained in the use of drug-sniffer dogs. The
teacher and principal tell students to leave the classroom, leaving their
jackets and bags behind. The students are watched while the police and dogs
enter the room. If a dog "hits" on a bag or jacket, the student is questioned.

Most of the time, the dogs do find drugs, usually marijuana. School
officials worry that marijuana affects students' ability to learn and may
encourage the use of more harmful drugs or involvement in drug trafficking.

The board argues that students have an expectation of a safe school
atmosphere, without the presence of drugs and drug dealers. Dan Wiseman,
head of social services for the board, calls the involvement of police
canine units "a very highly sophisticated, very effective strategy."

And it may be constitutional. While the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does
guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure, the Supreme Court ruled
in 1998 that students have a lower expectation of privacy while at school
than at home. Therefore, some searches may be conducted without a warrant.

However, that case involved a principal who searched one student on the
basis of a tip, not a random search by police who entered a classroom with
no reason to believe any student had done anything wrong.

Even if random searches are eventually deemed constitutional, they are
still too extreme a solution to the problem of drugs in schools. The school
board should not wait for a student or parent to launch a court challenge.
It should consider the implications of these searches now.

First, searches of bags and jackets are different than searches of desks
and lockers. Desks and lockers are school property, while a jacket belongs
to the person being searched. Such searches are unjustifiable without some
specific cause for suspicion.

Second, the involvement of police gives these searches a different
character than a simple locker check by a principal. A teacher or principal
acts in loco parentis -- in the place of the parent -- to protect the
safety of students. The police are agents of the state and should act in
accordance with our country's cherished principles, no matter who the
subjects of the search may be or how old they are.

Third, the involvement of "a very highly sophisticated" police unit is
likely to send the wrong message about police to the students. The
impression of state authority the students gain during these searches may
counteract the benefits of more benign interactions, such as drug education
programs. As most parents know, teenagers are easily embarrassed and often
very sensitive to any invasion of their privacy. We should not teach them
to live in a state of constant apprehension of a police search.

Fourth, these searches are not analogous, as the school board argues, to a
search at an airport. An airport search is consensual because people can
choose not to board a plane if they wish to avoid being searched. A school
dance would be a similar situation. But a random search during regular
school hours is not consensual, because students do not have the option of
not attending school that day.

There are alternatives to random police searches. A simpler alternative,
such as locker checks by the principal and searches based on a reasonable
suspicion of drug possession, would show the students the administration
cares about the drug issue without unduly violating privacy. The
Ottawa-Carleton school board has a duty protect its students from drugs and
drug dealers, but in a way that also protects their civil and
constitutional rights.