The Hart district may soon bring back trained dogs to sniff out drugs and alcohol among kids on local junior high and high school campuses.
William S. Hart Union High School District board members on Wednesday will discuss resurrecting the $20,000 a year program, which was canceled two years ago because of budget cuts. A local businessman has offered to donate his company's services to the 23,000-student district.

This time, Randy Cressall of CTR School Drug Dog Detection Services has offered his services at no charge, according to the district's agenda report.

The monitoring would be for all junior high and high schools, and drug dogs would make monthly visits, Superintendent Jaime Castellanos said.

Generally, students would leave a classroom and the dogs would enter with an administrator and sniff backpacks and other belongings. If the dogs found something, the student would be taken out of class for further investigation.

The dogs also check student lockers.

The district did not keep data about the effectiveness of the drug dogs, but Castellanos said the random checks acted as a deterrent.

The discussion is not connected to the Santa Clarita City Council's decision last week about the Hart district's zero-tolerance drug policy, Castellanos said.