WALES — Oak Hill High School was in lock down briefly Friday while police searched the building for drugs.

James Hodgkin, superintendent of Regional School Unit 4, which includes Litchfield, Sabattus and Wales, said State Police with drug sniffing dogs were unable to find any illegal drugs during the planned search.

“The results were very positive,” Hodgkin said.

This is the first time in at least three years police have searched the high school, Hodgkin said. The school board has lately developed policies for conducting searches inside the high school of about 500 students.

“We are committed to letting the students know we are serious about keeping drugs out of our school,” Hodgkin said. “We’ll do this randomly going forward.”

The school board was aware a search was being coordinated with police, Hodgkin said, but only he and Oak Hill Principal Patricia Doyle and Assistant Principal Robert Birmingham knew when the search would take place.

Police dogs found a couple of suspicious areas, but no drugs were found when those areas were checked, Hodgkin said.

He said the results do not prove the school’s students are not using drugs, but they may indicate the problem is not as pervasive as community members fear or that students are being more careful about taking drugs to school.

“I’m very pleased,” Hodgkin said. “This was a really good day. We’ll continue working on it.”