As part of its response, Loudoun County Public Schools introduced Monday that the district will companion with the county sheriff’s workplace and Leesburg police to begin randomly looking out the county’s 18 highschool buildings with police dogs. The scans will begin someday in March and final by means of the spring. The dogs can be utilized to look college property, like hallways and lockers, however can’t be used to look college students.
School and legislation enforcement officers stated they won’t share additional particulars in regards to the schedule to keep away from tipping off college students.
In Loudoun, the sheriff’s workplace reported 22 nonfatal opioid overdoses amongst juveniles in 2023, up from 17 nonfatal overdoses reported in 2022 and three in 2021. Many of those overdoses are occurring exterior of faculty hours, however there have been at the least 13 incidents in Loudoun for the reason that begin of the college 12 months in August by which a scholar was suspected of being underneath the affect, and CPR was carried out, Narcan was administered or the coed was taken to a hospital.
Schools spokesman Dan Adams stated the initiative was born out of stakeholder conversations about greatest reply to the fast improve of overdoses within the fall.
The scans are one piece of the district’s broader strategy to scale back overdoses, Adams stated. Other efforts embrace sharing data with households on have conversations about drug use and discovering higher methods to assist college students who’re battling substance abuse.
“The hope is to send a message that we’re doing what we can,” Adams stated in an interview. “We hope that the students understand that this is serious and we mean business.”
Drug use amongst teenagers is just not a brand new idea. But the presence of fentanyl, which is 50 occasions as highly effective as heroin and 100 occasions as highly effective as morphine, has elevated the stakes by driving overdoses — at occasions lethal — throughout the D.C. area and nation in recent years. According to an evaluation by The Washington Post, the artificial opioid was recognized in 84 p.c of adolescent overdose deaths from 2019 to 2021.
The situation in Loudoun was thrust into the general public dialog in November when the sheriff’s workplace introduced that 9 college students who attended one college within the county’s district had overdosed in a span of weeks and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) issued an govt order requiring college districts to inform dad and mom inside 24 hours of any drug overdoses within the college system.
But the incidents aren’t remoted to Loudoun. Schools throughout Northern Virginia have seen overdoses each on campus and in the neighborhood, main educators to vary protocols like growing monitoring of faculty hallways and shutting bogs.
In Arlington, after a freshman was discovered unconscious within the lavatory at Wakefield High School in January 2023 and later died of a suspected overdose, the college district started allowing students to carry naloxonewhich might reverse the consequences of an opioid overdose. The group has additionally organized round requires funding for extra after college programming.
Most college districts in Northern Virginia have additionally launched instructional campaigns with city halls and occasions to tell dad and mom and college students in regards to the threats of fentanyl. Fairfax County Public Schools hosted a discussion board in January after a Justice High School scholar died of a suspected overdose in December. It adopted two boards final spring after Centreville High School student Cayden Foster died of a fentanyl overdose in January 2023.
Arlington faculties spokesman Frank Bellavia stated the district has not used police dogs to scan faculties and isn’t in discussions to take action. A spokeswoman for Alexandria City Public Schools additionally stated the college district is just not at the moment utilizing police dogs in faculties.
In Loudoun, the canine groups will encompass a canine, their handler, the college useful resource officer and an administrator who will sweep highschool buildings throughout college hours with out advance discover. School officers anticipate the sweeps will take about an hour and a half, throughout which faculties will probably be placed right into a “hold” standing, which means college students and employees will stay in lecture rooms.
Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Tom Julia stated the dogs will solely be used to scan the inside of faculty buildings, not parking tons.
Julia stated the aim of this system is to behave as a deterrent to bringing medicine into the faculties, to not have interaction with college students or disrupt lessons. However, if a canine indicators that there may be medicine in a scholar’s locker or different belongings, it might give the college “reasonable suspicion to conduct a search of the locker” underneath college district insurance policies. If medicine are discovered, it’s as much as the college directors to maneuver ahead with the district’s self-discipline coverage.
The dogs, Julia stated, are skilled to scent sure substances. But he wouldn’t say which substances, to keep away from alerting college students. He stated the dogs will probably be Labradors, chosen as a result of they’re a extra friendly-looking canine.
Parents will probably be notified after a scan takes place, however won’t be notified of the result of the sweeps.
While most different college districts in Northern Virginia aren’t utilizing dogs to brush faculties, others across the state have carried out the tactic. Rob Hickman, president of the North American Police Work Dog Association, stated it was quite common follow for police dogs for use in random sweeps of excessive faculties. A overwhelming majority of the group’s roughly 4,000 member businesses, he stated, use dogs in highschool scans.
Police dogs even have been utilized in different areas of the nation, generally drawing authorized challenges. In 2001, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico filed a lawsuit that led to the tip of a college district conducting month-to-month drug-dog sweeps of scholars. The lawsuit argued using the dogs violated college students’ Fourth Amendment proper towards unreasonable search and seizure.
The dogs in Loudoun won’t be interacting with college students.
