CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - Dorchester County School District Two will start conducting contraband checks after Thanksgiving break. District Officials say it’s a proactive effort to keep students safe.
Law enforcement will use K-9 officers to perform the random searches in high schools only. Parents and guardians of high school students will soon receive a letter from the district to explain the process.
Some people might have already received a call from the school as well. Security director for the district, Preston Giet, says students will have no contact with the search dogs.
“These activities are not reactionary in nature in any means,” Giet said. “There’s been no increase threat level, there’s been no increase drug presence. it’s mainly just a way for us to remain proactive.”
Students will be moved to another location while searches are taking place of backpacks, purses, classrooms, parking lots or other parts of campus.
The entire school will not be searched at one time, just parts of it.
“These searches are completely random. there’s no target, there’s no specified place or person that we’re trying to catch or say,'We gotcha,'” Giet said.
District officials intend on having them periodically throughout the year, and they hope it will serve as a deterrent.
“K-9 searches gives us our least intrusive way to check things out,” Giet said. “If an officer is trying to do a search they are going to have to interact with each student individually. They are going to have to invade that person’s space, and we really don’t want to do that, that’s not what this is about. The dogs can come in, they can check the building out, they can check things out and make sure it is as safe and secure as we think they are.”
The Charleston County School District also performs random contraband searches. CCSD officials say random searches may involve K-9s
The dogs are only used to screen property and not people. The Berkeley County School District does random searches as well where K-9s are only used for parking lot searches.
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