A LOOK AHEAD * Despite concerns over civil rights, a plan to use dogs to sniff out contraband at Venice High could be the newest tool as . . . School Officials Try to Take a Bite Out of Drug Use

Responding to fears of parents about the presence of drugs and weapons on campus, administrators at Venice High School are seeking approval from the Board of Education to bring drug-sniffing dogs onto a Los Angeles Unified School District campus for the first time.

Under the pilot program requested by Venice Principal Bud Jacobs and a school committee, a dog and its handler would make unannounced visits to check for contraband in lockers, classrooms and even cars.

Administrators know that some parents and students believe that the searches would compromise students’ civil rights or create a threatening atmosphere.

But supporters of the program see the dogs as one more tool they can use in preventing drug use and violence in the school system.

Drug-sniffing dogs have been used in schools from Las Virgenes to Temple City to Long Beach and in Orange and San Diego counties.

“We have to do everything we can, legally, to stop anything from coming on to campus,” Jacobs said.

Supporters are quick to point out that the dogs are not aggressive police dogs but golden retrievers or Labradors.

They’re “the kind you want to go over and pet,” said school board member Valerie Fields, who supports the proposal.

If the one-year test program is approved by the Board of Education at its Aug. 4 meeting, Jacobs plans to work with a Houston-based company whose dogs are trained to sniff for marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, alcohol, a few medications and gunpowder.

“To be able to detect gunpowder without having to do a search is very attractive to us,” said Jacobs, noting that administrators find weapons on campus three or four time a year. “If we were to take those three or four off [campus], you might be saving somebody’s life. You never can tell.”

Jacobs said he has no accurate measure of how often drugs are carried onto campus.

But Claudia Border, a mother of two Venice High School graduates, said she’s heard all the evidence she needs that drugs are a problem at Venice.

“I’ve been told by students that you can go on that campus and buy pot any day,” she said.

Border, a member of the committee that administers Venice High’s LEARN program as part of a districtwide administrative reform effort, heard about drug-sniffing dogs last year from relatives whose children attended a private school that used them.

She brought the idea to Jacobs and the LEARN committee, which heard a presentation by the company that would provide the dogs, Interquest Group Inc., and voted to approach the school board for funding.

“I want to be able to say, ‘Venice has zero tolerance, and here’s our record,’ ” Border said. “If you want to go to school and get an education, you have to abide by the rules. If you can’t, you’re out.”

If the proposal is approved, Venice High will spend about $2,500 per year to have a retriever or Labrador arrive unannounced with a handler and detect contraband.

“There’s a common misconception that you’re going to see this snarling German shepherd in the school,” said Michael Ferdinand, vice president of Interquest, which began taking drug-sniffing dogs to Texas schools in 1979.

The company serves about 25 school districts and private schools in Southern California.

Dogs do not sniff the students, Ferdinand said. Students leave the classroom before a dog goes to work.

As long as students are not searched, their privacy is maintained, officials of Interquest and the school district say.

If the dog signals an “alert,” the student to whom the suspicious locker, backpack or desk belongs is questioned by school officials, not police.

Sometimes the dog will arrive on consecutive days to foil those who might have thought the coast was clear to bring drugs on campus.

Students and parents will learn about the program through a series of meetings where the dogs will demonstrate their abilities, Jacobs said.

Knowing about the possibility of random visits, he hopes, will deter students from bringing contraband.

A police department-owned Labrador named Skeeter visited Culver City High School about three times last spring but did not find contraband, which Principal Marvin Brown counted as a success.

He said a small, vocal group of parents initially opposed the program but that he heard no negative feedback once it began.

Culver City High students, he said, devoted much space in the student newspaper to denounce the program, contending that it violated their rights and would not be effective.

But, he said, administrators found fewer students with drugs on campus in the spring semester than in the previous one when other methods were used.

“It’s not absolute proof, but it is an interesting thing,” Brown said.

Dogs have also been used to detect drugs in Temple City. If the program proves useful at Venice, it could be a sign of things to come throughout the Los Angeles district, said board member Fields.

“Should it turn out to be a gung-ho success, we’d want to go ahead and publicize it to other schools,” she said. “If it will discourage kids from using drugs, that would be wonderful.”