Drug dog searches are not uncommon at Arapahoe. Nonetheless, the dogs’ appearance – and that of their accompanying officers – typically causes quite a stir around the school.
Principal Ron Booth cooperates with the Arapahoe County Sheriff Department for unadvertised searches of Arapahoe. The most recent search, on Oct. 13, did not turn up any drugs on campus or in the parking lot. Neither teachers nor students are notified ahead of time of the dogs’ arrival.
“I want to do this to keep Arapahoe drug-free,” Booth said. “We search all the lockers, both locker rooms and cars. We don’t discriminate if you’re a boy or a girl and we don’t know who drives what. I want that to be transparent.”
According to Booth and Officer Gordon Carroll, one of the dog handlers, the drug dogs have only found narcotics twice in the 12 years they’ve been searching Arapahoe. Carroll said that Arapahoe is the cleanest of all the schools they search.
The searches may raise questions about the Fourth Amendment, which protects American citizens from unlawful search and seizure. It states:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
In other words, American people are protected from search and seizure unless “probable cause” can be established. However, the Supreme Court has held that public school administrators only need “reasonable suspicion” to conduct searches, rather than probable cause.
The Supreme Court has ruled that using drug dogs to sniff the exterior surface of a container does not constitute a “search,” for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment.
Additionally, Booth said that the searches are legal because lockers are not owned by the student, but by the school. This is supported by the Colorado School Violence Prevention and Student Discipline Manual, which is published by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. It states that the school must have in place the “suggested policies for both lockers and parking areas wherein the student and parents give consent to search in exchange for the privilege of using that school property.”
The Littleton Public School District’s Student Code of Conduct states those policies necessary for the locker searches by police dogs.
“All lockers, desks and other storage areas provided for student use on school premises… are subject to inspection, access for maintenance and searches, including ‘canine sniff searches,’ with or without reasonable suspicion, pursuant to this policy.”
In addition, “No student has a reasonable expectation of privacy in and to the lockers, desks and other storage areas made available to the students.”
Deputy Chris Gulliof the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office said that the police are allowed anywhere a civilian is, such as the school’s parking lot.
“If a normal person walking down the street can look into your car and see alcohol, a police officer can,” Gulli said. “And if they have a dog with them, the dog can smell around the car.”
Additionally, the LPS Student Code of Conduct states that “students, by virtue of having the privilege of parking a motor vehicle on school property, are deemed to have given prior consent for search of a motor vehicle that has been brought by the student onto the school premises.”
Further information about student rights in public schools can be found at www.aclu-co.org/education.
Information about the LPS policies regarding drugs or searches can be found in the Student Code of Conduct, which was distributed to students and is available online at www.littletonpublicschools.net