Kootenai commissioners split on drug-sniffing dogs in schools

Kootenai County schools could soon face unannounced drug-dog searches under contract language Commissioner Bruce Mattare wants added to sheriff’s office school resource officer agreements, a proposal that has already split county leaders and drawn a sharp response from Lakeland.

Mattare said the goal is to discourage students from bringing drugs to school and passing them to others. Under his plan, future sheriff’s office SRO contracts would allow up to nine random canine searches per school year in schools that contract with the county for those services. Commissioner Marc Eberlein backed the idea.

The push came as Bryan Alexander, Kootenai County’s juvenile probation director, laid out drug-charge data from the 2024-25 school year. He told commissioners that 41 high school students and 17 middle school students faced drug-related charges allegedly occurring on school grounds in the Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls and Lakeland school districts. The reported offenses included possession of a controlled substance or drug paraphernalia, and 14 of the charges were for frequenting, meaning a student present when another student had drugs could also be charged.

The numbers were not spread evenly across the county. Alexander said 26 of the alleged offenses were in the Post Falls School District, 27 were in Coeur d’Alene School District and five were in Lakeland Joint School District. He also noted that the sheriff’s office does not contract with Coeur d’Alene or Post Falls for SRO services, but does provide SRO services at Timberlake High School.

Lakeland interim superintendent Jake Massey pushed back hard on the proposal. “We do not have a drug problem in Lakeland schools,” Massey said, arguing there is no justification for random dog searches at the sheriff’s office’s discretion. He said the district handles isolated incidents through student support and intervention.

Any change would likely run through existing contracts rather than a brand-new program. County records show Kootenai County already has 2025-26 SRO agreements on file with Coeur d’Alene School District, Kootenai Joint School District and Lakeland Joint School District. The Coeur d’Alene agreement was revised on Oct. 13, 2025, the Kootenai Joint agreement was entered into Sept. 1, 2025, and the Lakeland Timberlake High School agreement was entered into May 21, 2025.

The legal backdrop is not new to Idaho. In a 2011 Meridian Academy case, a principal asked a school resource officer to arrange a drug-dog sniff of students’ vehicles in the parking lot, and the dog alerted on a student’s car. Kootenai County juvenile probation officials have also said substance use disorders remain a concern even as caseloads have declined over time, and the sheriff’s office responded to a fatal drug overdose near Post Falls on Feb. 22, 2026.