Canine groups will start randomly searching Loudoun County high schools subsequent month, Superintendent Aaron Spence stated, as a part of a plan to deter college students from bringing illegal substances to college campuses.
Canine groups will start randomly searching Loudoun County, Virginia, high schools subsequent month, Superintendent Aaron Spence stated, as a part of a plan to deter college students from bringing illegal substances onto college campuses.
The scans, which might be performed by way of a partnership with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office and Leesburg Police, are scheduled to start in March. Students received’t be advised about them upfront, however the college district stated it’ll talk with college students’ households as soon as the scans are carried out.
The program comes amid considerations about suspected scholar opioid overdoses and the recognition of different substances, together with vaping units.
The idea of bringing canine groups into schools isn’t new. In 1989, for instance, Fairfax County Public Schools introduced plans to use drug-sniffing canine in schools, The Washington Post reported.
However, a Fairfax County schools spokeswoman stated that program isn’t in place in Virginia’s largest college district anymore. Arlington Public Schools additionally doesn’t have a program related to the one Loudoun is launching, a spokesman there stated.
Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland’s largest college district, has a memorandum of understanding with the county’s police division. But a faculty division spokesman stated it doesn’t “reference or present for random canine scans of our schools.”
Nonetheless, Loudoun County leaders are hopeful the sweeps will function an efficient deterrent.
“We’re sending the message that we imply enterprise. This is severe, we want to take this significantly,” stated Dan Adams, a Loudoun schools spokesman. “The youngsters want to maintain these things out of our schools, and maintain it out of their houses and maintain it out of their pockets, as a result of that is some actually harmful stuff.”
As a part of the deliberate scans, the canine units will stroll by way of frequent areas and unoccupied lecture rooms. They received’t be “going up to youngsters and sniffing their pockets or something like that,” Adams stated.
Michele Bowman, spokeswoman for the Leesburg Police Department, stated the canine might be searching for illegal narcotics, however they’re not educated to search for marijuana.
The college division is anticipating the sweeps will take about an hour and a half, with minimal disruption to class time.
The program, Bowman stated, has been within the works for months.
If a canine alerts an officer to a substance it discovers, police may have the chance to search lockers, Bowman stated. She described a false constructive alert as “impossible.”
The college district will consider this system’s effectiveness on the finish of the college 12 months and contemplate whether or not to implement it once more subsequent fall.
Adams, with the college division, stated it’s one step the county is taking to tackle what he referred to as a “disaster in our group.”
“This isn’t a problem the place we’re going to have the ability to ‘consequence’ our method out of it,” Adams stated. “There’s not going to be a magic repair.”
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