KSD is considering using drug dogs to walk through KHS halls once a semester. KHS is interested in using Dingo, a drug-searching canine, to sniff out marijuana, heroin and cocaine.
Other schools in the St. Louis area do periodic drug searches, such as St. John Vianney, Parkway, Eureka, Ursuline Academy, Rockwood, Pattonville and Webster Groves High. Ramona Miller, sophomore principal, and Mike Wade, junior principal, support the idea of drug searches to enhance the safety at KHS.
“I would hope that [the students] would want their school to be drug free,” Wade said. “At the end of the day, it’s protecting our kids and our school.”
When the searches are called, an administrator will go over the intercom and alert the students. The students will then have to line their school bags in the hallway and return to their classroom. Then the school goes on lockdown and no one is allowed to interfere with the search until complete. The length of the search is not certain, but it is estimated to be under thirty minutes. Officers walk with the dogs as they sniff around vehicles, lockers and hallways on campus.
“If we do have drugs in the school, first we want to help those students who may be using, and second, we really need to void ourselves of those who may be involved in the sales,” Miller said.
KSD does not know when or if this will be a fate for KHS, but it will be a continued discussion in future school board meetings in June.
If it is put into effect, the Kirkwood Police Department will bring Dingo to KHS to meet the student body to make sure all are comfortable with a canine on campus during school hours. Canines will then have access to search KHS and Vista campuses.
