LAKE COUNTY, Fla. – The Lake County School District is getting results when it comes to lowering the number of kids bringing vapes to school.
Back in November, we told you about Samba, the vape-detecting K-9 purchased by the Lake County School District. Since our first report, Samba has completed her training and has been working at Lake County middle and high schools since March 2024.
“It really is a problem, and I’m just glad we’re getting them out,” said School Resource Officer and K-9 Handler Erica Stamborski.
Stamborski said Samba has found more than 40 nicotine vapes and five THC vapes since March, but Samba’s efforts are leading to other items being found in addition to the vapes.
“They’ll also have, like, marijuana, or in one circumstance the student had alcohol in his backpack,” Stamborski said. “I was just shocked when they started pulling it out of the backpack.”
Stamborski said it didn’t take Samba long to find something in a student’s backpack.
“Our very first school walk, we walked a locker room where the students had left their backpacks (...) I put her down on the floor, gave her her command, and within seconds she was over on a backpack, sat down and alerted on it,” Stamborski said. “As they’re searching the student’s backpack, they found a nicotine vape and a THC vape.”
Abby Crosby, principal of Tavares Middle School, said she’s happy with the results Samba has been able to provide and prior to her arrival, Crosby said she was frequently dealing with vape-related issues on campus.
“We would sometimes hear about it on a daily basis and that has greatly decreased since Samba and Erica have been around,” Crosby said.
Crosby said they want to educate students while keeping them safe.
“We want to make sure that they are making good choices and creating healthy habits because especially at the middle school age, they are just finding themselves,” Crosby said.
Kristen Lamoreaux is a potential specialist at Tavares Middle School, but she also has two children who attend classes in the Lake County School District.
“As a teacher, very glad it’s on campus, taken care of off the teacher’s responsibility, and then as a parent, I feel that extra sense of relief that there’s backup,” Lamoreaux said. “I mean, it’s hard to do it alone as a parent, so it’s great that the schools are there.”
Sgt. Yancy Isaacs with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office is head of the agency’s K-9 unit. Isaacs not only picked out Samba, but trained her, too.
“We have not had a dog like her yet that just specifically does vapes,” Isaacs said. “So far it has worked out really well. I mean, she’s finding a lot of vapes in the schools and it’s also a deterrent because if the kids know she’s coming to the school, it should act as a deterrent.”
Isaacs also tells us there is a possible discussion on a second vape-detecting dog coming to the district.
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