K-9 agreement benefits Ringgold
Ken Munshower, owner of Ideal Investigations and Security Group of North Versailles, walks his K-9 Hunter down a row of lockers to check for drugs at Ringgold High School.
Hunter, a trained drug dog, checks vehicles at Ringgold High School with his handler, Ken Munshower, owner of Ideal Investigations and Security Group of North Versailles.
For the past two school years, the Ringgold School District worked with Ideal Investigations and Security Group of North Versailles to bring in specially trained canines and their handlers to search for drugs in its schools.
The district paid for the service, which came in once a month on a random basis with two drug-sniffing dogs and their handlers.
The principal at either the high school or middle school got a call from the service an hour before its arrival informing them of the pending visit.
During the searches, which include the school’s lockers, locker rooms and auditorium, students remain in their classrooms except for emergency situations.
Each search takes approximately 30 minutes, and the dogs and handlers are accompanied by the school principal, the guidance counselor and an officer of the school district police force.
After the school search, the dogs move outside to check for drugs in vehicles parked in the school lots.
“In the two years of operation, the drug searches have resulted in two hits,” said Clayton Shell, a former Pennsylvania state trooper and current chief of police for the Ringgold School District.
“They were both probably the result of secondhand odor picked up somewhere else and did not result in an arrest or disciplinary action.”
Besides the canine searches, half of the students randomly go through a metal detector when arriving at the school every morning and also have their bags searched. They also know the dogs will be visiting the school on a random basis.
“The dogs give us extra peace of mind and act as a deterrent because the students know they’ll be coming through school looking for narcotics,” Shell said.
“The students are in favor of the program and even come up with ideas as to how to improve the process. For me, when the students come forward with their own input, that means they get why we’re doing this and that’s fantastic.”
Recently, Ken Munshower, founder and president of Ideal Investigations, called Shell to ask if the school district would permit his organization to train its dogs on campus after school hours to facilitate a real-life environment.
Shell thought it would be a good idea and took the proposal to the school board, which approved the agreement March 16.
The board and Ideal Investigations subsequently signed a mutual aid agreement in which the school district would receive free K-9 search services in exchange for allowing Ideal Investigations use of the buildings to train its dogs after hours. During the training sessions, Shell or one of his staff will be present at the school.
“Ideal Investigations has some of the best dogs in the state, and the agreement is a win-win-win for the school district,” Shell said.
“Not only will the service provide continuing drug searches, but they will now be free of charge. Ideal will also train bomb-sniffing dogs and will notify us if they find something suspicious, which now gives us an added level of safety and security.”
The logistics of the training sessions, as to when and how many times a month they will be scheduled, have yet to be determined.
Munshower estimates between three and 15 dogs and an equivalent number of trainers will be present at each session, which will probably be held once or twice a month at the school.
No exact start date for the sessions has been determined, but Munshower is tentatively planning for a first class start up this month.
“We’ll be training both drug- and bomb-sniffing dogs, which will give the school district an extra measure of safety and security,” said Munshower, who also trains his dogs in other school districts, although Ringgold will be the first in Washington County.
School district superintendent Karen Polkabla said she’s been satisfied with the services Ideal Investigations has been providing the last two years and is looking forward to implementation of the new agreement.
“Not only does the agreement help save the district money, but it also familiarizes the dogs and their trainers with the school buildings, which should help them with their searches,” she said.