ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Drug-sniffing dogs will be making their debut at all five high schools in the Parkway School District next year.

Michael Barolak, coordinator for student discipline, says those police dogs will be brought in to sniff around lockers, as well as cars parked in the student lots.

“The ones in school will happen in the hallways, students will be on lockdown so the administrators will set that schedule so they know they can keep students in the classrooms,” Barolak said.

Those searches will last about 40 minutes each. Barolak said it’s important to note that the dogs will never be used to search students themselves and he hopes it works like peer-pressure in reverse.

“What I would like to look at is our discipline data and see if we have fewer instances of kids having substances at school once they know the dogs are coming,” he said.

By doing this, Parkway joins most other local districts in the use of drug-sniffing dogs at their high schools.