ROANOKE WILL USE DRUG-SNIFFING DOGS TO MAKE RANDOM DRUG SEARCHES AT ITS
MIDDLE SCHOOLS

Searches found no drugs at Roanoke high schools Dogs to search middle schools

Drug-sniffing dogs are used on school grounds. School Board members want to
take them in the buildings.

Roanoke will use drug-sniffing dogs to make random drug searches at its
middle schools during the next school year.

School Board member Sherman Lea said the specially trained dogs should be
used in the city's middle schools because many problems with drugs and most
fatal school shootings during the past year have occurred in middle schools
in several states.

"Across the country, it seems that more violence and drugs are in middle
schools than in high schools," Lea said.

Other board members agreed and this week directed school officials to expand
the drug searches to middle schools, which house the sixth, seventh and
eighth grades. In addition to looking for drugs, the searches are intended
to deter pupils from bringing drugs to school.

The dogs were used in one outdoor search each at Patrick Henry and William
Fleming high schools during the past year. No drugs were found.

School officials said the dogs will continue to be used at the high schools
next year.

Lea said the dogs should be taken inside the middle and high schools to
search book bags and lockers -- not just search parking lots and areas
outside the buildings.

"The community has asked us to deal with drugs in the schools, and people
think that searches are being inside, but they aren't," Lea said. "We've
only searched outside."

The searches at the high schools were limited to parking lots and the
perimeter of the school property because the commonwealth's attorney office
has not approved indoor searches yet, Superintendent Wayne Harris said.

Harris said prosecutors want to make sure proper legal safeguards are
followed during the searches so prosecutions won't be jeopardized if drugs
are found. Until the commonwealth's attorney gives the go-ahead, city police
are reluctant to take dogs inside schools, he said.

The board will contact Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell to see
whether school officials can do anything to ease prosecutors' concerns and
to hasten approval for indoor searches.

Caldwell was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Tom Bowers, an assistant commonwealth's attorney, said procedural guidelines
for searches have been drafted and are being reviewed. He said police
officers have to follow more strict procedures than school administrators in
drug searches to make certain that Fourth Amendment rights on search and
seizure are protected.

"I don't think we have to wait until we get approval from the commonwealth's
attorney," Lea said. "The community wants us to deal with drugs, and, at
some point, we have to say it is time to move on."

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett