Up In Smoke

By Drew Lindsay

The police who swooped down on Windsor Forest High School one day last spring stirred little panic. In the 15 middle and high schools in Savannah, Georgia, drug and weapon sweeps are about as routine as field trips. At Windsor, it's the same drill every time. First the intercom squawks with the announcement of a "code 22," a signal to teachers that police are on the way. Next comes what is known as "lockdown." To make sure no one dodges the search, all 1,350 students are held in their classes for two or three hours as teams of county and campus police, each with a drug-sniffing German shepherd, comb the school room by room.

The search on April 4 came on the last day of classes before spring break, and the interruption was a welcome prelude to vacation for some. But not for Sherry Hearn. By the time officers reached her classroom, the social studies teacher was doing a slow burn. Hearn thought the searches a huge waste of time. Her principal, her colleagues, district officials—they had all heard Hearn blast the district's get-tough approach as overkill. Police treated the kids like criminals and stomped on their constitutional rights, she argued. Worse, as an employee in the Savannah-Chatham County school system, she felt complicit in the crime.

Tall and thin, Hearn, 48, now stood silently, her arms folded, as police instructed her students to file out of room F-9 and line up against a wall. She watched closely as an officer ran a hand-held metal detector up and down each student. Occasionally the device buzzed, and, amid nervous giggles, students emptied the keys from their pockets or pulled up their shirts to uncover metal belt buckles. Inside the classroom, meanwhile, an officer with the Chatham County police led a drug dog up and down...