The state Board of Education last night voted 8-4 to approve controversial changes to the public school system's disciplinary rules, including allowing for suspicionless locker searches and drug-sniffing dogs.

For nearly two years, board members have been grappling with sweeping changes to rules governing student conduct and discipline. A major point of disagreement has been whether to allow searches of student lockers solely at the discretion of principals and school administrators, and the use of drug-sniffing dogs.

"I am thinking of the 99 percent of our students who are entitled to safe environments," board member Mary Cochran said last night.

The four members who voted no were board chairman Garrett Toguchi, vice chairwoman Lei Ahu Isa, Carol Mon Lee and Kim Coco Iwamoto. Breene Harimoto was absent.

The policy will be reviewed by the state attorney general and must be signed by Gov. Linda Lingle before it can take effect.

Board members debated at length over whether locker searches should be allowed with or without cause.

Iwamoto offered an amendment to remove language that would allow for suspicionless searches, but the majority of board members voted it down.

Ahu Isa said she does not support suspicionless searches, saying students have privacy rights.

"This is unconstitutional," she said.

But Kaua'i member Maggie Cox, a former public school principal, said allowing for suspicionless searches would "give (principals) the tools to be able to deal with the small group that are causing the problems."

Whitney White, owner of Interquest Detection Canines of Hawaii, ran a six-month drug-sniffing dog pilot project in 2007 at three Maui schools. She used a specially trained dog to detect alcohol, drugs and guns on campus. She said the state could face legal consequences for not allowing drug-sniffing dogs in schools.

"When and if a tragedy occurs relating to drugs, alcohol or gunpowder related items, the state could be sued for disallowing a proven program that could have prevented the tragedy," she said.

Katherine Irwin, associate professor of sociology at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, said research has shown the drug-sniffing dogs fail to detect drugs about 30 percent of the time.

Irwin also said groups such as the NAACP and Rainbow Push Coalition have challenged such programs on the Mainland on the grounds that "these mandatory disciplinary policies and drug policing strategies are pushing large numbers of African American, Latino and Pacific Islander students out of school."

Jeanne Ohta, director of the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, suggested that the board put money into programs that prevent drug abuse rather than spending money on a drug sniffing dog program.

"It sounds like ... drug-sniffing dogs are going to help the drug problem, but it really doesn't help. ... It doesn't address usage, it doesn't decrease usage. Isn't that the end result of what we want?" Ohta said.