By Chad Koenen

Publisher

The New York Mills School District will continue its contract with Interquest Canine Services to conduct up to nine random searches for illegal items and drugs in the school and parking lot. However, prior to approving the contract, the school board had quite a bit of candid conversation about the need to balance potentially falsely accusing students of having a banned substance on the school grounds with the safety of other students/staff members. 

During its regularly the school board, which was held on May 19, the school board heard from Sarah Fox of Interquest Canine Services who has performed random searches with canines to look for banned substances like gun powder, bullets, firecrackers, guns, beer, alcohol, illegal drugs and medications that are commonly abused. Fox said the goal of having the random searches was to be a deterrent to prevent students from being the items to the school.

“The objective is we are coming in and being a proactive determinant. At any given time the student body knows the dog could show up. The hope would be they would be less inclined to bring something to school that doesn’t belong here,” said Fox. 

She went on to say the searches are done under the direction of the school administration to search the school grounds. In the event the dog identifies an odor, it is trained to sit, whether it is an actual item or a residual smell. 

“If a dog smells an odor then the dog is trained to sit,” she said.

In the event the dog identifies the odor of a banned substance, Fox said the student is called to the office and a casual conversation takes place to find out if the student knows why the dog may have identified a potentially banned smell near their locker or vehicle. She said a search can be done of the locker or vehicle if the student obliges, otherwise if the student does not allow a search the information is turned over to school administration and the conversation is over.

While Interquest Canine Services has not located any marijuana on the school district property this year, something she credited with having searches approximately once a month, Fox said a neighboring school district recently caught a 12-year-old student dealing THC vapes at school.

Following the presentation from Fox, school board chair Amy Mursu asked how often the canine dogs have a false positive where nothing is located in the vehicle or locker. 

Fox said the dogs used by Interquest are over 87 percent accurate in court with finding illegal items, but unless a student opens their locker or vehicle and allows the search, there is no way to know if the hit was a residual smell or actual item. She went on to say they find shotgun shells quite often, especially during the high school trap season and deer hunting season in the fall.

“The thing is until I get inside a vehicle I don’t know if it will be a residual smell, or if there is something in there,” said Fox.

Mursu also raised a concern regarding the mental health of students who are questioned about a potentially illegal item when the dogs are not 100 percent accurate in determining residual smells or actual items. She also asked whether the searches are a deterrent to bringing the items to school in the first place.

“I am concerned about the deterrents. Do we have any evidence that this actually deters anyone. I am concerned about the mental health and well-being of our children who are being wrongful accused,” she said. 

School board member Derek Geiser said he viewed searches in the school building and the parking lot differently, as he has said in the past he is not in favor of searching vehicles in parking lots. 

NY Mills School Superintendent Adam Johnson said his previous school district did not have trained canines regularly go through the school to search for illegal drugs. He said his previous school district would call the sheriff’s office to complete a search if necessary, but those dogs can only search for illegal substances, not drugs like marijuana which have been made legal in Minnesota. He said that school district had an issue with students using Delta 9, which is a synthetic marijuana and Johnson questioned if not having trained canines to search the halls could lead to a similar issue with marijuana and other illegal drugs at NY Mills.

High school principal Michelle Young also spoke in favor of the canines stating she has never had a student who has expressed concerns about the searches. She was concerned about what items could be brought to school if the random searches no longer take place.

Longtime school board member Kristina Ehnert said she felt it was important for the school board to put personal feelings aside and listen to the school administration for a recommendation on the issue.

“Part of me says, as a school board, we are entrusting our administration to help advise us as to what is best for our district. We are not in this school everyday. We don’t know what it is to be in this school, walk the halls, have students come up with a vape or have to deal with those situations. So part of me feels that we might have our own personal opinion about a topic, and we are all entitled to our personal opinions, absolutely, and we all have our own personal reasons for how we feel the way we do because of the past experiences (or) because of professional (experience). But I do feel strongly as a board we need to take into consideration what the administration, what the faculty and what the staff, what they feel because they are in this building with that.”

Mursu said her biggest concern is the lack of data and how the searches affect the students. She said it is the school boards responsibility to look out for the students and their needs as well. 

“What I am concerned about is we do not have any data on how this is affecting the kids, especially the kids who are innocently accused,” she said. 

The motion to approve the contract with Interquest Canine Services passed on a 5-2 margin with Derek Braukmann, Kristina Ehnert, Ethan Kern, Brian Schermerhorn and Jodi Seelhammer voting in favor, while Derek Geiser and Amy Mursu voted in dissent. 

In other news

• Accepted the high bid of $85,100 from Robb Oyster for the student-built house. The school district received two bids in the amounts of $81,000 and $85,100 with a minimum bid of $78,000.

• Approved the application for cooperative sponsorship for boys hockey. The new coop will include the schools of Wadena-Deer Creek, Staples-Motley, Verndale, New York Mills, Sebeka, Parkers Prairie and Henning. A number of the school districts were part of a previous coop for boys hockey. 

• Accepted one percent of the staff development funds for the district general fund. State law requires two percent of the general education revenue to be reserved for staff development, however, the teachers at NY Mills School District have opted to return one percent of those funds to the general fund.

• Approved the reduction of two elementary teaching positions due to budget constraints. 

• Approved increasing Katelyn Tervo from .4 pre-k teacher to .4 pre-k teacher and .4 elementary teacher to assist with academics and behavior in the lower grade levels. 

• Approved posting for a .5 FTE elementary teacher.

• Approved the appointment of Adam Justin as special education teacher for the 2025-26 school year and Dinee Dykhoff as long-term sub

• Approved the resignation of Tammy Cichy as school nurse, Brea Tallmann as elementary administrative assistant and Jaden Karger as elementary teacher.