WATSONVILLE, Calif. -- A Central Coast school district looks to weed out drugs by bringing in the big dogs.
It's a crack down the Pajaro Valley Unified School District is not taking lightly and is discussing Wednesday night.
The school board is talking about whether to get drug-sniffing dogs that are specially trained to sift through students' lockers, cars and classrooms to see if they have any drugs, alcohol or gun powder on them.
The Carmel Unified School District has been using the dogs for more than a decade and said they help deter students from bringing drugs and alcohol to school.
Students in Carmel use and abuse drugs at an alarming rate, said Heath Rocha, director of Student Services for the CUSD.
And that's why 17 years ago the district contracted with a company to bring drug-detecting canines to the campuses.
"This school year, we've swept over 100 student cars, 400 lockers, 15 classrooms and we did not find any alochol or illegal drugs," Rocha said.
But last year, he said four students were caught with weed and alcohol on them, or in their cars.
While PVUSD is looking at getting its own canines, officals said they're doing it to be proactive, not because of a drug spike.
They did say though they see more incidents of students suspended for having weed on them, compared to alcohol.
Rocha said getting the dogs are a good step, but said it's just one piece of the puzzle to crack down on students using and abusing drugs.
"Instead of just suspending them for five days and they return, we have a program called Power Forward and it reduces their suspension from five days to two days, but they have to commit to seeing our school counselor here and going through a counseling program for four evenings," Rocha said.
The company CUSD goes through charges $150 for every three-hour visit, while the company PVUSD is looking into costs about $350 per visit.
PVUSD is meeting at 7 p.m. at its office in Watsonville.
