The drug dogs are back at Kennedy in a search around school for possession of narcotics, including marijuana, tobacco and alcohol. The dogs can be seen around the school today, Nov. 2.

This procedure is something that happens if called upon under suspicion, or just a random check. Officer Buckles is here for the check and has been working with the Cedar Rapids Police department for seven years.

Officer Buckles comes to schools in Cedar Rapids with his drug dog and search the halls and parking lots together. Buckles claims that it’s not predictable whether they’ll find something or not.

“Every time it’s different, it’s kind of a hit or a miss,” he said.

The dogs are trained constantly on the smells of narcotics. Every time the dogs are suspicious, so are the officers.

“Coming into the schools we hope not to find anything, however that’s kind of the reason we come,” Buckles said. “[We come] to keep it [narcotics] out of the schools and obviously keep the students drug free.”

The procedure for findings of these narcotics would be notifying staff and taking the student out of class. After talking with the student, it’s up to the school and staff to decide further action.

“If we located a substance we would handle it on our portion and also school staff could handle it with their procedures of their school policies,” Buckles said.