Updated: Drug Dogs Coming to RUHS

With a 3-2 vote Tuesday night, the Board of Education decided to bring drug-sniffing dogs from the to .

Board members Todd Loewenstein and Drew Gamet voted against the proposal.

• Previously:

The police K-9 units would act as a deterrent so students wouldn't bring drugs on campus, according to Assistant Superintendent Frank DeSena.

DeSena was on the Redondo Beach Unified School District's Drug and Alcohol Community Task Force that that dogs regularly search for drugs at the high school. The high school would use dogs from the RBPD K-9 unit at no extra cost to the district.

Currently, only one dog in the K-9 unit is trained to detect narcotics. A second dog will be trained at the beginning of next year.

During Tuesday's meeting, Redondo Union Principal expressed her support for the dogs.

"Dogs would only be present in common areas, and they would also be allowed to sniff lockers," Wesley said. "I believe this will be a strong deterrent on campus—students will see the dogs. I don't see this as a 'Gotcha.'"

Much of Tuesday evening's debate centered upon the policy's language. The original policy stated that the dogs had the right to search not only lockers and common areas, but also vehicles and classrooms, even though all previous discussions had called for limiting the searches to lockers and common areas.

The school board voted to amend policy so that it would only cover searches of lockers and common areas.

"I think that change works for the students much better," said student representative . She added that an informal poll of RUHS students found that students supported bringing drug-sniffing dogs to school if they only searched the lockers and common areas.

Some students told her "if they're just doing lockers, then we're just going to put [the drugs] in our backpacks," she later added.

Nevertheless, Loewenstein saw the introduction of a drug-sniffing dog as the first step down a slippery slope.

"I'm obviously against the use of drugs on campus, as we all are, but I think there's ways of doing this that are not as intrusive to students," he said. "Plus, the message it sends to kids is that we don't trust [them]…

"When you send the message, 'I don't trust you,' then they will act like they don't deserve your trust—and that's a problem."

Board members Laura Emdee and Anita Avrick said they were against the proposal at the beginning; however, many parents voiced their support for the measure.

"Coming out of the '60s, I have a really strong affinity for not doing these kinds of searches," Avrick said. Nevertheless, "it was overwhelming. The parents … came up and said, 'We think this is a really good idea.'"

She also said that she wants counseling made available to students who do get caught with drugs on campus.

Neither Wesley nor the school board members were under any illusion that sniff-searching the campus would be an end-all to student drug use.

"We understand that students do and may take drugs, but we want to do everything in our power to keep that from happening on campus," Wesley said. "Students will think twice—if not three times—about bringing contraband."

Mira Costa High School in neighboring Manhattan Beach already uses drug-sniffing dogs on campus.