Cops: Schools 'First Line of Defense' on Drugs

Jefferson Township schools would love to keep students off of drugs—not to have substance abuse be an issue in school at all.

But that's not how the real world works. Not even in a low-crime community like Jefferson.

Drug issues do arise. And when they do, it's a matter for both the academic and law enforcement communities to address.

“While we work together with the schools on drug issues, the school is the first line of defense," said Captain Eric Wilsusen of the Jefferson Police Department. "The school follows a particular protocol, and their main objective is to get the student help."

Each day this week, Jefferson Patch explores the impact drugs are having on our community. Monday, we discussed the growing concern over hard drugs, such as heroin, in Jefferson Township; We also told the story of a Jefferson man whose family struggled for years with addiction. Tuesday, .

The school district has a policy in place detailing exactly what happens when a student is suspected to be under the influence, or found with drugs in school. It involves notifying parents, conducting searches of the student's property and locker, and arranging for the student to have a medical examination that includes drug screening. It lays out procedures for the principal to be notified of results, and bars a student from returning to school without a signed physician's release form.

If a student is indeed confirmed to be using drugs, the policy also requires treatment before the student can continue attending school, and lays out penalties that can escalate from detention to suspension after repeated offenses.

The full policy is included in the Student Handbook, found here. 

The district and police have in place a memorandum of agreement, meant to address all safety and security issues, said Dr. Kathaleen Fuchs, superintendent of schools for Jefferson Township. It provides for the district to have two full-time student resource officers, one who works primarily with elementary students, and one with middle and high school students.

"These individuals work closely with school administrators and are often among the first responders to incidences," Fuchs said. "More importantly, because the SROs are in school every day interacting with students, they have established a strong connection with our students, particularly those who are troubled."

As a technical matter, Wilsusen said, a student who's found with drugs or under the influence isn't arrested—he or she is taken into custody.

"This is the state law, which says that juveniles are technically not arrested. For all practical purposes, it is very similar, but we just call it something else. The juvenile justice system is meant to rehabilitate, not punish," he said.

Helping students is what both the schools and police aim to do. However, the ways they can do it differ.

“There are some pretty strict differences between what the school can do and what we can do as police. The main thing is that as police, we need to have probable cause to take someone into custody," Wilsusen said. "The school only needs to have reasonable suspicion.”

If a student is caught by police out of school, the law provides for police to notify the schools, Wilsusen said.

"The school can also take some actions based on the arrest, for example, suspending the student from sports, activities, etc. But again, since the system is designed to rehabilitate, the courts would lay out a plan through probation to enter the child into a rehab program or random drug testing," he said.

Even if a student is not interested in receiving help or has been caught multiple times, Wilsusen said, he or she can be forced by the system to get help.

If a student in school appears to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the school has the right to bring the student to the office and make him or her empty pockets, backpacks and purses, Wilsusen said. But students don’t always make their use of drugs obvious. So the school district, working with police, has other methods of trying to identify drug use.

“We have random suspicionless K-9 searches, where the dogs come in and sniff for drugs in lockers,” Wilsusen said. 

Students don't know when these searches are going on.

"When the dogs come in to sniff, we have to stay in our classrooms," said seventh-grade student Cara McAnerney. "We don't know when they're coming, or if they are even there." 

If the K-9 search leads to suspicion, Wilsusen said, the school has the right to search the locker.

"It doesn't bother me that they search lockers, because I don't have anything to hide," McAnerney said. "I guess I'd be pretty scared, though, if I did have something in there."