CLAY COUNTY, Fla. – Clay County Schools and the Clay County Sheriff’s Office will begin bringing K-9 units into high schools to search for weapons, drugs and other prohibited items, the district said.
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The program, called “K-9s on campus,” calls for regular sweeps by trained police dogs in areas such as parking lots and lockers. The move follows an incident last week in which deputies charged an 18-year-old student after a loaded handgun was found in a car in the Ridgeview High School parking lot.
“A dog that has been trained to smell out narcotics, bombs — whatever — has the ability, without opening the locker, to detect such items,” Richard Bramlitt, a retired Clay County sheriff’s deputy who worked with the department for 27 years, said.
Bramlitt said the county has strengthened school security measures over the years, including changes to response tactics after the Columbine shootings.
Some parents expressed concern about bringing K-9s into schools.
“I think it’s going to be too much,” Rufina Colon, a parent, said. “The children don’t have a lot of freedom even at school. At home we already have parents on top of them. At school they can’t even feel a little loose because they’ll be scared.”
The school district’s online Q&A on the program said K-9s are intended to locate firearms, controlled substances and other prohibited items and notes that such searches do not require probable cause.
The district also said interactions between dogs and students “will be kept as brief as possible as we try to minimize disruption to the learning environment.”