Drug dog controversy wracks district - by Don Speich -Marin IJ 3/11/206

Drug dog controversy wracks district
Don Speich
Marin Independent Journal
03/11/2006 09:04:00 AM PST

Responding to widespread criticism including accusations of violating the constitutional rights of students, trustees of the Sausalito Marin City School District will hold a public hearing March 20 on the use of drug-sniffing dogs at a 38-student middle school in Marin City.
The American Civil Liberties Union has called on the district to terminate the practice, saying it violates constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure.

The NAACP has launched an investigation to determine whether the drug-sniffing dogs violate the civil rights of the students at the Martin Luther King Jr. Academy.

Under the program, children once a month for the remainder of the school year will go outside and dogs will enter the classrooms and sniff backpacks and other personal belongings.

Board President George Stratigos announced the hearing at a board meeting Thursday night attended by more than 60 people, the overwhelming majority of whom were there to protest the drug dogs.

Interquest Detection Canines of Houston began work last month when representatives introduced students to the dogs that will be sniffing until June at a cost of $2,500.

Several people, including six students, had come to speak during the "public comment" part of the meeting.

The meeting, which began at 7 p.m., had an agenda with more than 30 items, the last of which was time for public comment. It is customary for most boards to schedule public comments at the beginning of a meeting.

Trustee Whitney Hoyt moved that the public comment be moved to the front of the agenda. Trustees Shirley Thornton, Robert Fisher, and Stratigos sat silently, staring straight ahead, and the motion died for lack of a second. Trustee Tom Clark did not attend the meeting.

Stratigos attempted to reassure the parents and students by saying they would have plenty of time to speak on March 20. The well-mannered audience, most of them Marin City residents, said nothing, though eyes were rolling and heads were slowly turning side to side.

Jim Geraghty, a resident of San Rafael's Canal district, walked over to the podium and complained that by the time public comment came around the students there would be home and in bed.

Then he turned to the audience and said if there were any civic teachers at the meeting they should "use this as a model" of how democracy should not work.

Before the meeting, 12-year-old Jordan Mosely, who along with several other students was armed with placards calling for an end to the drug-dog program, said the program is needless.

"Even if there was a drug problem, this is such a small school and everyone would know," he said. "We don't need dogs."

A majority of the trustees, who approved the program in November, concede they know of no drug problem at the middle school. And, they add, that is why they want the dogs, to prove they are right.

They said that in a quest to turn the predominantly minority district into one of academic excellence they will leave no stone unturned, even if it means drug-sniffing dogs.

Thornton, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force, a former principal of San Francisco's Balboa High School and a former top administrator with the state Department of Education, has called schools "a hallowed ground" where nothing should stand in the way of academic achievement.

Stratigos said this week it was important to make sure there are no drugs at the school because it will give a new superintendent - expected to be hired by July - evidence that drug use will not impede a mandate from the board to make Sausalito Marin City "the best district in the county."

It is a rationale that, at least in part, prompted an investigation of the district by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Dan Daniels, NAACP statewide director, said, "They seem to be going into the school without probable cause."

Daniels as well as a representative of the ACLU attended the meeting.

---Article Launched: 03/11/2006 09:04:00 AM PST
objection: Twelve-year-old Stephen Louis (right), a sixth-grader at Bayside Elementary School in Sausalito, and angry classmates, parents and members of Community Action Marin protest the use of drug-sniffing dogs at a middle school at Thursday night's meeting of the Sausalito Marin City School Board at district headquarters on Nevada Street. (IJ photo/Robert Tong )


NEXT MEETING

The Sausalito Marin City School District Board hearing on drug-sniffing dogs at Martin Luther King Jr. Academy begins at 7 p.m. March 20 in the multipurpose room of Bayside Elementary School at 630 Nevada St. in Sausalito.

EDITORIAL-Dogs off campus - San Francisoc Chronicle - March 23,2006

EDITORIAL
Dogs off campus

Thursday, March 23, 2006

THE 38 STUDENTS at Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Marin City must be quite a reckless, rowdy bunch -- why else would the school board think it necessary to bring in drug-sniffing dogs?

In November, the trustees of the Sausalito-Marin City School District voted unanimously to authorize the use of the dogs through the Interquest Detection Canines of Houston.

The board may have been quick to make its decision, but it took its time getting the word out, waiting two months to notify parents of the new policy. By that time, it was just three days before the dogs would be brought to the school.

Confronted by an understandably outraged group of community leaders, civil-rights activists, parents and students at a public meeting on Tuesday, the board agreed to suspend the policy for two months, saying it would revisit the issue on May 18.

While the board's decision-making process highlights a serious lack of communication between its members and the community, the larger issue is the decision itself.

The trustees argue that the program will help assure the community that the school is drug-free, but admit they have no evidence of drug problems at the school.

They also argue that the program is used at other schools, such as Marin Catholic High School. That school, however, is made up of approximately 800 high-school students, not 38.

Given the fact that the school is made up of all African-American students, the board's decision only escalates the problem of perception in an area where racial tension runs high.

It doesn't take a dog to figure out that if the faculty can't detect a problem as big as drugs in a school as small as MLK, then they have real problems to focus on.

Page B - 8

School board leashes drug-dog plan - San Francisco Chronicle - By Peter Fimrite March 22, 2006

MARIN CITY
School board leashes drug-dog plan
Plan to send them onto black campuses is labeled racist
Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Community leaders expressed hope Tuesday that racial harmony can be restored in Sausalito after a program to bring drug-sniffing dogs into a mostly African American middle school was suspended amid a public outcry.

Outraged students, parents and civil rights activists pilloried the Sausalito Marin City School District board Monday for approving what they said was a racially insensitive program without community involvement.

The district's five trustees agreed in November to a contract with Interquest Detection Canines to use the dogs in monthly sweeps of the Martin Luther King Jr. Academy middle school, a small school attended by 40 black children, mostly from Marin City.

After 90 minutes of criticism, the trustees suspended the program for two months so they could discuss the issue with parents, student groups and community organizations. The board plans to come back May 18 with recommendations on whether to continue or end the program.

"I think it is great that they've gone in this direction and are finally listening to people's concerns," said Bryce Skolfield of the Youth Leadership Institute, a nonprofit that works to bring youths and adults together to make policy decisions. "A lot of work needs to be done now to make sure that whatever decision is made is rooted in community support and we intend to be very involved."

The issue is an example of the volatile nature of education in Sausalito, where almost 90 percent of the district's 300 or so elementary and middle school students are minorities -- and about 80 percent of them are African Americans from Marin City, an unincorporated area that includes public housing complexes.

For years, most white parents in Sausalito have sent their children to private schools elsewhere in Marin County. As a result, almost everything about public education in Sausalito is tinged with real or perceived racial issues.

The school trustees, two of whom are black, said the drug-sniffing dog issue was blown out of proportion mostly by uninformed people.

Interquest, they said, is a program used by numerous schools around Northern California, including Marin Catholic High School and the Novato Unified School District, to search public areas in the schools. The program policy states that no students, lockers or backpacks can be sniffed or searched without reasonable suspicion.

Sausalito school trustees said they agreed to the contract in part to combat the perception that there is widespread drug use in the community. Last November, shortly after the board approved the contract, some 30 people were arrested in an unrelated drug sweep near the school.

"My greatest fear is that there will be a drug bust and it will be on our campus and people will come up to us and say, 'Well, how did that get by you?' " said Trustee Thomas Clark.

But Skolfield, who called Marin City a museum of racism, said the issue of race cannot be ignored when dogs are brought in to control a problem that there is no evidence exists.

The district has been integrated since the 1960s, when busing started between Sausalito and Marin City.

The racial mix, however, began to change rapidly in 1990 when military housing at Forts Baker, Barry and Cronkite started closing, reducing white enrollment in the district's schools.

Enrollment subsequently dropped, leaving predominantly African American students from Marin City. By 2000, the district's students had the lowest test scores in Marin County, a fact that widened an already gaping racial, economic and cultural divide.

Politicians and community leaders have been trying for years to improve the district's schools, but high teacher turnover, a successful school board recall and a widely publicized sex scandal involving a trustee only made things worse.

In recent years, Clark said, there have been significant improvements in scores at the district's three schools -- Bayside Elementary, Martin Luther King Jr. Academy middle school and the new Willow Creek Academy charter school, although none has broken into the ranks of schools the state rates as excellent. The latest Academic Performance Index scores released Tuesday by the state show Bayside with a 723 score, Willow Creek with 709 and Martin Luther King with 629. A score of 800 out of 1,000 is considered excellent.

In light of those academic improvements, the decision to bring in drug-sniffing dogs was all the more baffling to people.

Board members, however, said they have been trying for six years to get the community involved in the schools, but nobody showed up or previously expressed any interest in the dog issue despite written notification and two public meetings before it was approved.

It became an issue, they said, only after Skolfield and other out-of-town activists -- including a group of students from Branson, an exclusive private school in Ross -- recently drummed up opposition then showed up en masse at the meeting on Monday night.

E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com

Public Hearing On Drug Dogs At Marin Middle School -CBS5.com - March 19, 2006

Mar 19, 2006 12:51 pm US/Pacific

Public Hearing On Drug Dogs At Marin Middle SchoolSave It E-mail It Print It
(BCN) Trustees of the Sausalito Marin City School District are vowing to press ahead with plans to bring drug-sniffing dogs to a local middle school.

The plan has come under fire from parents, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

But Board President George Stratigos says a majority of the trustees will not back away from their decision to have the dogs sniff-out the personal belongings of students at Martin Luther King Junior Middle School.

The trustees say they have no evidence drugs are being brought to the school but want to use the monthly inspections to avoid potential problems. A public hearing on the issue is scheduled for Monday night.

Under the program, students would be required to leave their classrooms while the dogs from a Houston firm sniff their backpacks. The inspections would continue until the end of the school year at a cost of $2500.


(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)

School board holding firm on drug dogs -Marin IJ - March 19, 2006 by Don Speich

marinij.com/news/ci_3618840
School board holding firm on drug dogs
Marin IJ - March 19, 2006 by Don Speich



Under fire from civil rights groups, trustees of the Sausalito Marin City School District have broadened Monday's public hearing on the use of drug-sniffing dogs to include a report on the legal justification of the practice.
Board president George Stratigos also made it clear Friday that a majority of the trustees will not back away from the contentious use of dogs at the district's 38-student Martin Luther King Jr. middle school in Marin City.

Terri Harris Green, a district parent and a member of the Marin City Community Services District board, said it was evident from Stratigos' statement that the board "is stuck in cement."

"This does not make for good community relations. I really hate what is happening. We have people who we voted to represent us, and they don't want to hear from us."

The American Civil Liberties Union has called on the district to end the program because it "lacks a legitimate basis."

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has launched an investigation into the district out of concern the practice would violate the civil rights of students.

Stratigos said the board was open to hearing from critics. But, he added, after trustees hear from their lawyer and implement whatever adjustments are needed to assure its legality, "it is pretty clear that a majority are pretty steadfast" about keeping the policy.

Originally, the special meeting was called to allow district parents, most of them from Marin City, to voice opinions about the program.

Many parents and students have been sharply critical of the program and criticized the board for not hearing from them before the plan was adopted in November.

The


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board president said he was encouraging parents and others to come not only with complaints about the drug dog program but with possible "solutions" to drug problems in Marin City.

If, for example, a parent says, "'I know all the drug dealers in town,'" Stratigos said, "then give us a list of names."

Under the program, Interquest Detection Canines of Houston will perform monthly inspections of the middle school. In January, the company brought the dogs to the school to introduce them to students who, under the program, will leave their classrooms while the dogs sniff their backpacks and other personal belongings. Inspections are to continue until the end of the school year at a cost of $2,500.

Trustees have said they have no evidence of drugs at the school but that they want the dogs to reassure them. Also, Stratigos has explained, trustees want the school to have a clean bill of health so a new superintendent, expected by July, will know there is nothing in the way of the district's march to academic excellence.

Contact Don Speich via e-mail at dspeich@marinij.com

IF YOU GO

Monday's Sausalito Marin City School District hearing on the use of drug-sniffing dogs at the Martin Luther King Academy Jr. in Marin City begins at 7 p.m. in the multipurpose room of Bayside School at 630 Nevada St. in Sausalito.

Reporters' Notebook - Comment about NSBA Story - Marin IJ - April 15, 2006

Reproters' Notebook
Comment about NSBA Story
Marin IJ
April 1, 2006
An article detailing how Sausalito Marin City educators were among the few from Marin to travel to Chicago for a conference at taxpayer expense came under fire from the district's public relations officer, Martin Brown, who called it "a hit piece."

"You mentioned Richard Simmons was one of the speakers in the story, but none of the educators who spoke," Brown fumed.

The story relied on information from the conference's Web site to list keynote speakers, including workout guru Simmons.

Among the Sausalito officials who attended the National School Boards Association's annual conference at the Lakeside Center at McCormick Place were trustees Thomas Clark, George Stratigos and Shirley Ann Thornton, as well as Superintendent Debra Bradley. The tab: roughly $7,000.

The district may have to forfeit the $650 conference registration fee for a fourth trustee, Robert Fisher, who canceled at the last minute.

George Stratigos: We will not look the other way - Marin IJ, - Voice of Marin - March 14, 2006- By George Stratigos

George Stratigos: We will not look the other way
Marin Voice
March 14, 2006

by George Stratigos



THE PUBLIC conversation of our board's decision to contract with a firm used by other Marin County schools to perform drug detection sweeps, utilizing specially trained dogs, has gotten far ahead of the facts.
At two publicly noticed district board meetings in late 2005, this program was discussed in open session. Once the program was approved as part of a comprehensive drug prevention policy, we notified, by mail, all of our students' parents.

In January, we held an assembly with the students in which company representatives came and introduced the drug-sniffing golden retrievers to staff and students, and the students were told that sweeps of common areas in and around the school would be made on a periodic basis. It was also noted that individual checks of students would not occur unless there was specific cause to do such a search.

To date, no detection sweep has actually occurred. The vocal protest that has now arisen around this component of our drug prevention policy, however, would lead the casual observer to think otherwise.

The board is further examining this policy and will discuss it in public session at a special meeting in the multi-purpose room of Bayside Elementary School on Monday at 7 p.m.

Whatever our final decision on the future of this particular program, I want to assure parents and concerned community members that we will remain vigilant in protecting our children from the scourge of drugs that impacts our nation, our state, our county and our community.

The easy answer to concerns about drug abuse is to simply look the other way. That does a great disservice to our children and their right to a safe and drug-free environment.

Over the last six years, we have doubled our test scores. We have more to do to accomplish what we call "Vision 900," a program that will take us to the top of our county in test score performance.

We have no intention of allowing the corrosive influence of drugs to deter our students from accomplishing this goal and from achieving their dreams.

George Stratigos is president of the Sausalito Marin City School District Board of Trustees.

Trustees ripped for not saving Marin City program - Marin IJ - March 11, 2006 - by Don Speich, Marin IJ Reporter

Trustees ripped for not saving Marin City programMarin IJ - March 11, 2006
Don Speich

marinij.com/news/ci_3588614



The head of a key social-service organization in Marin blasted trustees of the Sausalito Marin City School District Thursday night for failing to help relocate 175 underprivileged preschool and after-school children attending programs in Marin City.
"We are struggling to stay in this community because you have chosen not to work with us," said Gail Theller, executive director of Community Action Marin, a group that has been running preschool and after-school programs in Marin City for 40 years.

CAM runs several programs at Marin City's Manzanita Learning Center, a former school site it leases from the district. It has been told it must leave to make room for the construction of a new middle school.

With the exception of a possible portable classroom the district has not offered any additional space for the programs.

Theller was joined in her criticisms of the district by Trustee Whitney Hoyt, the principal of Mill Valley Middle School, who agreed - as her fellow trustees sat stone-faced and silent - that CAM had been treated poorly by the district.

"CAM is being stonewalled and we do not get together and meet with them until they get an eviction letter that is unsigned," she said.

Theller, looking directly at board members and occasionally back into the room packed with child-care supporters, said, "For over 40 years we've had a wonderful relationship with the school district, which has provided space which is at a premium. I am saddened to say at this point CAM does not have a relationship with the school district."

The children "desperately" need the programs, she said, and "we are the only resource you have in the community at this point."

"There is little left to say since you have chosen not to talk to me," she said.

Trustee Shirley Thornton, who had been critical of CAM for failing to produce what she said were adequately prepared children for the district's primary grades, said: "We have been assessing every program in the district and we want the best programs for our children.

"If programs don't meet muster we don't keep them," she said. "Our job is to make sure children that leave here can make it through Tam (Tamalpais High School). So please, this is not personal."

Theller and others from CAM said they are working with the Marin City Community Services District to see if it is feasible to have some classes at the Manzanita Recreation Center.

But, she said, there is no space for the Head Start children and as a result, "some children are going to lose child care because we will not have enough space."

She said some Head Start children may be able to attend programs in San Rafael and Novato, if they can find transportation.

As the result of a successful $15.9 million bond election in 2004, the district plans to raze the center and replace it with a new Martin Luther King Middle School, now occupying temporary quarters about 100 yards behind the center.

Construction is scheduled for November. The district has provided no other site for CAM, except for a portable building on its Bayview Elementary School site, a few miles away in Sausalito.

The portable could hold only 22 students, according to CAM officials. No other site has been offered because the district does not have the space needed for the programs, district and CAM officials said.

Of the 175 children served by the programs, 65 are from Marin City and the remainder come from other county communities but mostly from San Rafael's Canal district.

Trustees say if the district takes over the preschool programs these youngsters will be excluded because the district can no longer afford to transport them, board president George Stratigos said.

School officials have said they expect preschools to continue next year but that it is likely they will not be provided by Community Action Marin. Trustees maintain the programs have failed to provide children with the skills needed to be successful in the district's primary grades.

The trustees have set ambitious goals for raising the academic achievement levels - now among the worst in the state - for its 350 students, and they believe CAM programs are handicapping their desire to make the district, as it was put by Stratigos Wednesday, "the best district in the county."

The board president said his vision of a perfect preschool "is not one that looks like a ghetto school" but rather one that is more upscale, "that may cost $10,000 a year" for children from the well-to-do and nothing for low-income children who could "attend on government grants."

Theller says she "is perplexed" by the district's growing disenchantment and estrangement with her organization.

Theller noted an evaluation of the program last year by the state Department of Education that gave good marks to the programs.

"Children are offered an exceptional variety of activities and materials to enhance their growth and development," states the evaluation. "In their interactions with children, staff is warm and caring, helping children to understand and respect one another by modeling this behavior themselves."

Theller said the programs deal with "the entire family; it is certainly a lot more complicated than the school district wants us (the public) to believe."

Disenchantment with the programs seems, at least in part, to have originated at a California School Board Association meeting on preschool last year, where trustees say they learned that the children sent to them from the preschool programs didn't, for example, have as an extensive of a vocabulary as was expected.

Trustee Tom Clark has said the afternoon school programs have failed as well.

"No one gets more tutoring than these (after-school) kids - and it's not working."

Theller said she found this particular criticism curious since, she said, it is the district, not CAM, who is running the after-school program.