Drug-sniffing dogs to search schools

Michael Miller

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District plans to reinstate the use

of drug-sniffing dogs at its secondary-school campuses this spring,

subjecting each middle and high school to random searches at least

once a year.

Several years ago, the district stopped conducting the searches

due to unease over recent nationwide lawsuits, most filed by the

American Civil Liberties Union, which argued that bringing

drug-sniffing dogs onto campus violated students’ civil rights.

However, after a number of requests from administrators and school

resource officers, the district decided this year to begin conducting

limited searches again.

“Every school has issues with drugs,” said Jaime Castellanos,

assistant superintendent for secondary education. “I’ve worked in the

parochial and public school systems and they both have them. Drugs

are unfortunately a problem with society, and they do trickle into

the schools.”

The searches, according to student services director Mike Murphy,

will take place at each school about twice a year and will only

entail inspections of students’ lockers and cars. Most of the ACLU

lawsuits -- filed in northern California, South Dakota, New Mexico

and elsewhere -- centered around dogs inspecting students’ clothes

and backpacks, a procedure that Newport-Mesa forbids.

In February 1995, the district first instituted police dog

searches after the school board voted 5-2 in favor of them. Over the

next few years, the Costa Mesa and Newport Beach police departments

provided dogs to inspect the school grounds. While the dogs rarely

uncovered anything in Newport-Mesa, nationwide tension over the issue

caused the district to temporarily abandon the procedure.

“I think our board just backed off for a couple years,” Murphy

said. “There were several cases out there and our board was being

prudent and wanted to make sure that we didn’t get caught in a court

case.”

The searches, Murphy and Castellanos said, will most likely begin

after spring break; the district hopes to have searched all of its

secondary schools by June 2006. In recent weeks, site principals have

sent letters home to parents informing them of the inspections.

Jane Garland, spokeswoman for the district, said the dog searches

were mostly preventive and that Newport-Mesa has minimal drug

problems compared to other schools.

“We have no reason to believe we’re looking for something,”

Garland said. “It’s a deterrent, and it’s proactive.”

Sgt. Larry Hicks, who runs the canine unit for the Costa Mesa

police, said searches are usually conducted when classes are in

session. Officers and dogs walk down the corridors accompanied by

school officials, and tag any lockers that appear suspicious. If

students are suspected of drug possession, the schools will decide on

the consequences and notify the police of their actions.

Despite the volume of nationwide court cases protesting the use of

dogs, Newport-Mesa never drew such a complaint during the years that

it conducted searches.

“We got a little backlash from the community, but not a lot,” said

Lynne Bloomberg, who coordinated the district’s Safe and Drug Free

School program during the 1990s. “It was mostly community activists,

people who didn’t have kids at the schools. The dogs were a little

bit different and more dramatic than other things we had done.”

* MICHAEL MILLER covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at [email protected].