HIGH SCHOOL SEARCH DOGS SNIFF OUT DRUGS IN DELANO

DELANO — Debi Fahl likens it to high-stakes hide-and-seek.

"It's a big game to her," Fahl says about Bleu, the chocolate-brown
Weimaraner zipping energetically around her legs. "We tell her to look for
something, she finds it and we give her a treat."

For Bleu, it's playtime; the heavy, excited pants and the vigorously
wagging tail are dead giveaways.

But the items the short-haired canine is looking for are serious — the kind
that can land you in jail.

Fahl runs the Central Valley office of Interquest Detection Canines, a
Houston-based company that trains drug-sniffing dogs.

The Delano Joint Union High School District hired the firm in June on a
$6,800 contract to conduct random, unannounced searches at Delano and
Valley high schools during the school year. Officials would not disclose
specifics, including the frequency or timing of the searches.

Dogs such as Bleu and their handlers, escorted by a school administrator,
will sweep locker rooms, bathrooms and vehicles in student parking lots
checking for narcotics, gunpowder, alcohol and prescription drugs.

Delano High, whose enrollment hit 3,200 students this fall, becomes the
first mainstream campus in Kern County to implement such a program.

Delano high students and teachers got a chance to see the dogs in action
briefly during an outdoor assembly on the first day of classes last week.

Students at Valley High, a district-run continuation school on Princeton
Street, were introduced to the program this week.

Superintendent Sherrill Hufnagel considered the program to be more of a
measure taken to deter the flow of contraband onto campuses rather than an
enforcement tool.

Interquest dogs on Tuesday morning sniffed through 20 classrooms and a
boys' locker room at Delano High. The search turned up nothing, school
officials said.

"This is our way of telling (students), 'We don't want this kind of stuff
on our campus,'" Associate Principal Richard Smithey said of the program.

The Interquest searches involve general sweeps of areas where students keep
personal items, as opposed to police-organized searches, which require
probable cause and a search warrant.

The dogs will not be allowed to search students.

A dog's sense of smell is so acute, it can detect alcohol fumes from an
unopened can of beer or the gunpowder of a shotgun, even if it hasn't been
fired, Fahl said.

Police dogs also tend to be more aggressive than Interquest canines and are
trained to search for large quantities of contraband. Interquest dogs
generally look for drugs and alcohol in smaller quantities typical of
recreational use, Fahl said.

Interquest has five locations in California, including an office in the
Merced County community of LaGrange, which is responsible for the San
Joaquin Valley.

The company operates similar programs in 57 valley school districts,
including high schools in Porterville, Exeter, Tulare and Strathmore.

All six of the schools in the Porterville Unified School District — which
includes three high schools, two middle schools and a community day school
— are searched at different times of the year, said Val Staley, that
district's assistant superintendent.

In the Tulare County community, dog handlers also show up to schools
unannounced and search locker rooms, lunch areas and other communal areas.

Classrooms are searched only after students have been asked to leave.

Staley said Interquest dogs also have searched students' luggage on
school-related events, such as trips to Disneyland.

Letting parents know up front about school officials' intentions — to
protect students, rather than bust them — has kept the program
well-supported in the district, Staley said.

"We're telling students that we're serious about protecting them from the
influences of drugs and alcohol and any access to it," Staley said.
"Parents want the same thing, I believe."

There has been no organized opposition to the program in the seven years
the Porterville school district has had it, Staley said.

About 74 percent of contraband Interquest dogs recovered last year in other
school districts was some kind of narcotic, mainly marijuana, Fahl said.

Delano High students have carried their books around in bags since the
early 1990s when officials pulled hallway lockers out for space considerations.

The only places where lockers can be found are in the gymnasium for
physical education classes.

Smithey said students found with contraband would be interviewed by school
administrators, who can punish them either by suspension or expulsion.

Evidence recovered by the dogs also can be turned over to police for
criminal investigation, depending on the severity of the case, Smithey said.

Smithey said the school district's contract with Interquest expires at the
end of the school year but could be renewed if the program is successful.

"So far, we've gotten some good response, especially from parents. They
really like the program," he said. "They want to know their children are
studying in a secure and safe learning environment, one that doesn't have
drugs, alcohol or weapons."