Drug-Sniffing Dogs’ Campus Presence Protested

Outraged by a policy that allows police dogs to sniff out drugs on this city’s middle school campus, some parents and community leaders have launched a campaign to outlaw the searches, saying they violate students’ privacy rights.

The policy was adopted in 1998 by the Santa Paula Elementary School District board and put into effect this year at Isbell School after a flurry of drug-related expulsions at the 1,200-student campus.

The practice isn’t universally condemned, though.

Other parents and some educators defend it, including Isbell Principal Sheryl Misenhimer, who said she has no doubt that the use of a Santa Paula Police Department canine has helped keep drugs off the campus.

However, opponents say the practice casts a wide net of suspicion over all students at Santa Paula’s lone middle school and undermines constitutional guarantees to privacy.

“Students do not leave their privacy rights at the schoolhouse gate,” said school board member Ofelia De La Torre, who has led the push to abolish the policy since getting elected in November.

“I am for a drug-free environment for our kids,” she said. “I just don’t like the way this is being done. We should find other ways to deter the problem, if there is one.”

Opponents have been joined by the Ventura County chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, which is threatening legal action if the policy is not rescinded.

Misenhimer said parents were advised at the start of the school year that the searches would take place, and a canine demonstration was put on at Back to School Night in late September. A German shepherd conducted three random searches of classrooms from October to December.

No drugs were found during any of the searches, which Misenhimer cites as evidence that the surprise inspections discourage drug activity.

The searches have been suspended for now pending a school board review. However, supporters have launched a petition drive aimed at ensuring that the policy remains in force.

“I didn’t bring dogs in here to catch kids--it’s a preventive measure,” said Misenhimer, who has been at Isbell for 13 years, the last three as principal.

“I do respect the view of people who feel this violates the rights of children, but I want to protect kids,” she said. “My philosophy behind this is I’d rather overstep someone’s rights and get sued than find one of our kids overdosed in the bathroom.”

The controversy has tapped a larger debate about how best to safeguard school campuses, a topic now receiving plenty of discussion in the wake of a spate of school shootings nationwide and reports that drinking and drug use are on the rise locally.

Ventura County school districts differ widely on the use of drug-sniffing dogs.

While school officials in Ventura, Ojai and Camarillo do not use drug-sniffing dogs, administrators at Fillmore High and Santa Paula High have enacted policies within the past year that allow such searches.