No drugs found in Durfee High

drug search Students continue studies while dogs sniff lockers

By Carol Lee CostaCrowell, StandardTimes staff writer

FALL RIVER Durfee High school joined the ranks of Wareham, Dartmouth and
Somerset when dogs prowled the corridors, sniffing for drugs Tuesday
morning. The search came as no surprise to most of the 2,750 students, and
School Superintendent James M. Gibney announced that no illegal substances
were found during the 20minute search. Nor did the dogs disrupt classroom
work. "It was a very thorough search and I'm happy to report not one single
case of any kind of drug was found," Mr. Gibney said. The campus was quiet
most of the morning and many students were not aware when a fourvehicle
convoy pulled up to the west side entrance of the school shortly before
9:30 a.m. K9 officers from the Bristol County Sheriff's Department and
Dartmouth Police Department swarmed into the Tradewinds Restaurant which
is run by the school for a presearch meeting. Within minutes, the
announcement was made over the publicaddress system that no one was to
leave the classrooms.

The search went off without a hitch, Mr. Gibney said. On Sept. 8, School
Committee member Wayne M. Rego presented a resolution calling for the drug
searches, pointing out that the school has "zero tolerance" for drugs and
that he wanted students to have a safe environment in which to learn. The
committee adopted the measure. Yesterday's search came three weeks after
that vote. Although no drugs were uncovered, Mr. Gibney said school
officials will call for additional unannounced searches throughout the
school year. "This puts the student body on notice," Mr. Gibney said. "We
are not so naive to think no drugs are taken by students in high school. We
are not so naive to think this means that problem is not there. It shows
that the problem isn't as severe as some in the media report it to be."
Flanked by three members of the student government, Mr. Rego, School
Committee member Bradford L. Kilby and school Principal Albert Attar, Mr.
Gibney beamed during the press conference held at 12:30, three hours after
the search. "We had scheduled this press conference and notified the media
while the search was taking place. We would have held it even if they had
found drugs," Mr. Gibney said. Capt. R.J. Sylvia, Nelson deGouveia, David
Souza and Wayne Ferreira, all with the Bristol County sheriff''s K9 unit;
and Dartmouth police K9 Officers Kenneth Vincent and Fred Maranhas
conducted the search with five dogs.

The dogs sniffed 1,500 lockers and made two sweeps. "I am happy to report
there were no dogs running down the corridors, barking and biting," Mr.
Gibney said. "We really weren't surprised" by the announcement of the
search yesterday, said Heather Fayerweather, a junior. "I was in economics
class when they made the announcement. Nobody seemed to care about it or
went to look at the corridor." Her sister, Melissa Fayerweather, a senior,
said most of the students expected that a search would happen soon because
it had been so publicized. "It was obvious they were planning a search. So
who would leave something in their locker to get caught?" Melissa said.
"They would just keep it in their pockets or pocketbooks and carry it
around with them." She said that according to the announcement, no one was
allowed to walk the corridors while the dogs were there. "The reaction in
the classroom was mostly they didn't care." The superintendent said he met
with members of the student government after the School Committee vote on
the new policy to explain the procedures and principle of the drug
searches. "We stressed that it was to provide them with a safe learning
environment and to determine if steps needed to be taken to ensure that
drugfree environment," he said. The student government is made up of 30 to
40 members of the sophomore, junior and senior classes.

"Once they learned of our intent, the student government was in favor of
conducting the search, and in fact thought we should conduct it the next
day,' Mr. Gibney said. He said he limited the search to the lockers in the
corridors and not to the gym lockers, classrooms or individual searches of
students. "We were advised there might be some privacy rights if we went to
search students' bookbags or personal property," he said. Sheriff Thomas
Hodgson said his department has conducted 30 such searches in and out of
Bristol County. "We sort of gear our searches to customize the different
approaches each school wants," Sheriff Hodgson said. "Some want a more
extensive search, some want a limited one."

The sheriff said such a search sends a strong message for parents and
students who support a safe learning environment. "It also serves as a
deterrent to those who might consider criminal activity by keeping them off
guard and off balance because they never know when we might show up,"
Sheriff Hodgson said. "We will keep applying the pressure as long as the
school officials want us to," he said. Aimee Bronhard, multicultural
liaison and a fouryear member of the student government, said she is proud
of the school and wanted to take her hat off to the students since the
search proved drugs were not at the school. Robert Margetta, editor of the
school newspaper The Hilltop, said there are not many security police
patrolling the corridors or metal detectors at the large school. "We don't
have the problems that many of the smaller schools seem to have." He said
his newspaper published an editorial this week saying the lockers are
school property and only on loan to students, and that the drug search was
a decision of the administration.

Mr. Gibney said the school newspaper did a takeoff on David Letterman's top
10 reasons, and listed the top 10 reasons for having drug dogs at school.
"It was pretty funny," Mr. Gibney said. "It shows the students have a sense
of humor about the whole thing." Daniel Fitzgerald, president of the
student government, admonished the news media, saying he hopes the fact
that no drugs were discovered would make the story frontpage news as it
did when the policy was first announced. Principal Attar said the purpose
of bringing the dogs to the school was to send a message to the student
body. "We took a proactive stance," Mr. Attar said. "We have a
zerotolerance policy on drugs here in school, in the lockers or anywhere
in the building. We do not have a drug problem and today's findings prove
that."