Brandon Chin and Nicole Pipp
Staff Writers
After five years, Dublin schools are bringing back the use of drug detection dogs. Dublin High’s dogs are mainly used to search for illegal drugs and contraband.
Because of budget cuts over the past few years, Dublin had to eliminate the funding for their search dogs. With more money in the budget, their search dog program will begin at the start of next school year.
The search dog program won’t be used at Dublin High until it is explained to students at a school-wide assembly. These dogs will search Fallon and Wells middle schools, at least one time this year, as well as Valley High, Dublin’s continuation high school.
Alameda County Sheriff’s officers will use search dogs at Dublin and Valley High, as well as the two middle schools. The Dublin High school resource officer was unable to comment.
With Cal’s neighboring school using this practice, some people wonder if Cal would do the same.
“If Cal High uses search dogs, the decision will not be coming from (Principal Mark) Corti or any of the administrators, but from the board of education,” said Cal assistant principal Dayna Taylor.
Many schools in Dublin, Livermore, and Pleasanton have newly implemented policies allowing police canines to search for drugs and weapons, and article clothing search. Cal Resource Officer Hollis Tong said article searches allow the police to let search dogs smell out a scent on a backpack, weapon, or piece of clothing to find the suspect.
Before Dublin’s search dog program stopped in 2007, the dogs consistently found marijuana and fireworks in students’ cars, said Dublin director of student services Bryce Custudio.
The Fremont school district authorized the use of police dogs on their campuses beginning next fall.
“The use of police dogs on school campus does not infringe on anyone’s rights because the school has the authority to do searches on their property,” said Gregory Pipp, school resource officer at Mission San Jose in Fremont.
Many Dublin students said they feel safer with the dogs on campus.
“I think that it will be beneficial because it is for the safety of the students,” said Dublin junior Courtney Starr. “The dogs are well-trained and are there solely for the purpose of making sure that students don’t bring drugs or weapons to school.”
Some Cal students think that schools need to take this step to limit drugs on campus.
“I have always been against the possession of illegal drugs,” Cal junior Leonard Haller said.
Cal junior, Frank Nguyen thinks search dogs could benefit the school.
“It will help find illegal drugs that students should not be having,” Nguyen said. “It will help keep our campus a drug free school.”
Although some students may feel comfortable with dogs searching their belongings, others do not.
Some students are concerned that the search dogs may interfere with learning time by entering a classroom if the dog happens to pick up on a scent.
“I think that there must be a law the police department would be breaking if they searched random people’s lockers or backpacks without permission or a warrant,” said junior Anthony El Zakhem.
