Amanda Conroy still feels the bark from that trained drug dog.
One minute she's preparing for prom and graduation from Barron Collier High.
The next, she's forced into an alternative expulsion program but allowed to graduate with her class.
But her transcript records got messed up, indicating she had been expelled and delaying her admission by a semester into a Tampa university.
Her offense involved driving her mother's Dodge Durango one day, a day officials conducted searches with drug-sniffing dogs.
No drugs were found in the Durango, but there was a stun gun.
"I think it absolutely infringed on her (civil) rights," said Bob Conroy, her father. "You lose all your Constitutional rights once you drive on (property of) Barron Collier High School?"
Conroy and others think the Collier County School Board should debate the system's unwritten policy to have cars, and in some cases school buildings, searched by dogs trained to sniff out hidden drugs.
They question the effectiveness of the dog searches, especially in light of what they see as trampled students' civil rights and fueling a climate of fear.
But school officials maintain the dogs have a deterrent effect. They note that students are treated with the utmost civility in an effort to avoid "in-your-face" security.
"Nothing triggers (the dog searches), it's done a couple of times as a preventative measure," Gulf Coast High Principal Eric Williams said. "We're very sensitive that a student could be nervous once a dog alerts on a vehicle."
Some supporters said the dog searches are justified, even at the expense of students' privacy.
"This is a different world today and that's why we need new measures," said Herald Clifford, 68, a retired businessman whose daughter went to Collier schools and whose two grandchildren now attend. "If you've got nothing to hide, then why would someone object?"
Amanda Conroy didn't have any objections, so when officials asked her to open up the Durango, she did so without a thought. That's when deputies found her mother's stun gun.
The teen had borrowed her mother's car after her own broke down.
"Amanda repeatedly asked to call her parents and they wouldn't let her," said Bob Conroy, who three hours later was called to the school.
Barron Collier Principal Ron Miller couldn't be reached for comment.
Parent Steve Enwall, 48, whose daughter attends Gulf Coast, called the searches unnecessary, punishing students who either unintentionally make a mistake or are just being teens.
After all, students wanting to avoid detection could simply put the drugs in their backpacks, he said.
There's no School Board policy regarding the dog searches.
And district officials don't keep records regarding the searches. They couldn't provide the number of searches conducted throughout the years or the number of times drugs were found.
They weren't even sure when dogs were first used, except for sometime in the mid-'90s.
In the student code of conduct, there are several areas dealing with searches including this one from the section involving drugs and alcohol:
"School personnel have the right to search individuals, lockers and personal property when there is a reasonable suspicion that the individual may possess a controlled substance or alcoholic beverages. Metal detectors and specially trained animals such as drug detecting dogs may be utilized in these searches."
The Collier County Sheriff's Office conducts the canine school searches.
"The method we use to decide on a search and when we do it, we don't want to be public because it's tactical in nature," said Bill McDonald, the sheriff's commander of special operations.
Although the Sheriff's Office keeps records of the searches, the statistics weren't immediately available.
It's unclear how the dogs are used to search cars and school lockers. When the dogs are in the hallways, for example, are they used only when students are in class or between periods?
Assistant Superintendent Ray Baker remembered using the dogs to search inside Pine Ridge Middle during the mid-'90s, when he was principal.
The search was conducted after a school renovation in the hallways and locker area, but there were no students present because it was done in the late evening.
The dogs are used in middle schools only if there's a suspicion of drugs, Superintendent Ben Marlin said.
"It's a pretty common practice in the last 10 to 15 years because of increased drug use," Marlin said. "(They) do a sweep of buildings and it sends a message that we're not going to tolerate it on the campus."
Still, district officials couldn't provide statistics backing up that the dog searches have resulted in fewer problems with drugs or weapons.
If that is the case, Conroy said the searches are unjustified, especially in cases like his daughter's when the weapon belonged to someone else inside a locked truck.
School officials' authority to use dog searches rests on a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the legality of the search of a New Jersey student's purse, which showed signs of drug dealing.
The judges found there's a lower threshold to justify such searches on school grounds, than the probable cause required under the Fourth Amendment for most police searches.
But Collier officials said they can search any car that comes onto school property including visitors' and teachers'.
There are signs at each of the high schools alerting drivers, principal Williams said.
At Naples High, a sign reads: "By entering this area, the person in charge of any vehicle consents to search of the vehicle, with or without cause, by school officials or public officers."
Randall Marshall, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said such a blanket statement "strikes me as problematical."
"The notion that a government entity can require the waiver of constitutional rights, merely by coming on property to conduct business, is troublesome," Marshall said. "Merely putting up a sign saying coming in to here, you agree to be searched . . . then any government entity can start putting up those signs."
And when the dogs falsely alert, also called a false positive, there's a risk that school officials will punish innocent children, Marshall said.
The Conroys feel that's what happened to their daughter. The dog alerted that drugs were in the Durango and officers asked the teen for the keys to open up the truck.
Amanda Conroy agreed without thinking about her mother's stun gun.
Consent can be an important issue.
"If an official says, 'May I search your car?', and then you consent that's one thing," said Marshall of the ACLU. "But if the official says open up your car and you have no choice, then that would constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment."
Such a false alert by a dog occurred at Gulf Coast High last school year.
After an e-mail threat, officials brought in bomb-sniffing dogs that alerted to something in a locker. Administrators decided to cancel school that day since a bomb search would take about four hours.
Nothing was found in the locker.
The dogs probably smelled residual odors, arising from exposure to something days earlier, rather than from actual contraband, said McDonald of the Sheriff's Office.
The School Board recently revised its zero tolerance policy — stating students will automatically be expelled for weapon possession.
In Amanda Conroy's situation, officials said they had to remove her from Barron Collier High, even though the stun gun belonged to the teen's mother, and it was two weeks before graduation.
But with the revised policy, students can now appeal to the superintendent for a review of the situation.
Even so, Bob Conroy hopes other students won't have to go through what his daughter experienced.
"These searches are a waste of police time," Conroy said.
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