Article Review: Random School Searches Undermine Students
Introduction:
March 7, 1980: two freshman girls in a New Jersey high school were caught smoking in the bathroom by a teacher. The teacher sent both girls to the principle's office since smoking in the bathroom was a violation of a school rule. Both girls were questioned by the Assistant Vice Principle, Theodore Choplick. In response to questioning by Mr. Choplick, one of the girls admitted that she was smoking in the bathroom. However, the other girl, T.L.O. denied that she had been smoking in the bathroom and claimed that she did not smoke at all. Mr. Choplick demanded to see T.L.O.'s purse. As Mr. Choplick opened the purse, the pack of cigarettes was clearly visible. As he reached into the purse for the cigarettes, he noticed a package of cigarette rolling papers. In Mr. Choplick's experience, high school students possessing rolling papers was a correlation …show more content…
to the use of marijuana. He then proceeded to search the purse intently to yield more evidence of drug use. His search exposed a tiny amount of marijuana, a pipe, a number of empty plastic bags, an extensive amount of money, a list of people who owed T.L.O. money, and two letters that implicated her for dealing marijuana. Mr. Choplick notified the police and T.L.O.'s mother and turned in all the evidence he found through his investigation. At the police station T.L.O. confessed to selling marijuana to high school students. On the basis of the confession and the evidence seized, the State brought delinquency charges against T.L.O. T.L.O. argued that the search of her purse violated her fourth amendment rights and the evidence seized should not be admissible in court because it was an unlawful search. Was Mr. Choplick's search of T.L.O.'s purse a violation of her fourth amendment rights? Do student even possess their constitutional rights in a school setting? With the growing concern of drug use and violence in our schools, should safety be our number one priority? Is illicit drug use or violence even a concern or just a figment of our imagination? After the Columbine High School massacre, every high school in American was on its tiptoes. Some high schools in America have taken drastic measures to curb school violence and drug use. Metal detectors, police dogs, intrusive searches, drug testing on students participating in extra curricular activities, and placement of police officers in the school environment have been some of the methods used. Do these methods force our schools to become more prison like and treat each student as a suspect? As popular culture takes over the minds of our students, school administration in conjunction with law enforcement are desperately seeking solutions to decrease delinquent behavior. MySpace which is known to mature individuals as another way of keeping in touch with friends and reconnecting with old friends has become somewhat of a breeding ground for trash talking high school students. These on going battles often get played out in fights on school property. Another effect popular culture has on students is the style of clothing. Is there a correlation to dress code and school safety? Does the school at in place of the parent and should the administration be allowed to search students under the reasonable suspicion standard? This paper seeks to examine if the right to search students in a school setting violates the fourth amendment and is school safety compromised if it is. Alameda High School is the central focus of examination because that is where I was interning at.
Literature Review:
Carroll, Jamuna., ed. Students' Rights. Farmington Hills: Thomson Gale, 2005
Charles Haynes' major claim in his article, School Dress Codes Limit Students' Freedom of Expression is that while allowing students to wear offensive clothing in school may create an environment of conflict and diversity, such controversy is vital to any free society. His article focuses more on students wearing offensive t-shirts rather then the way students are dressing; for example, sagging of the jeans, low cut shirts on girls, short mini skirts, grills, chains, etc. I do agree that dress codes do limit students' freedom of expression. I also agree with the decision the U.S. Supreme Court made in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District that "school officials many not ban student expression just because they don't like it-or because they think it might cause conflict. The school must have evidence that the student expression would lead to either (a) a substantial disruption of the school environment, or (b) an invasion of the rights of others." The author has not done his own field research.
Stephen Daniels' major claim in his article, School Dress Codes Are Necessary and Constitutional is that instituting a dress code promotes a positive learning environment, reduces conflicts associated with name brands and gang clothing, and decreases the gap between poor and rich students. Daniels' article makes many convincing arguments but he doesn't seem to be able to address in my opinion the most important issue: money. How would poor families pay for the uniforms to comply with the dress code? The school district would probably pick up the tab for families that could not afford it. That probably would not pose a problem in an upper class school district. However, how would a school district pay for uniforms if half the families in that district were low income? That would be financially crippling. The author has not done his own field research but has included statistics from school having the dress code policy.
Joe Blankenau and Mark Leeper's major claim in their article, Random School Searches Undermine Students' Privacy Rights is that search policies promote authorities' morals and overstate the dangers of drugs in schools to justify pointless searches.
The authors also state that suspicionless searches teach students that rights do not matter. I disagree with the author's point of view on overstating the dangers of drugs in schools. I believe it is a growing concern in our public school system. How do we expect a student to concentrate in class if he is stoned all the time? I think instituting random school searches should be on a case by case basis by school district. Blankenau and Leeper's article do not raise any issues of escalating school violence. Are weapons growing concerns like drugs are? The authors surveyed responses of Nebraska High School Principles to obtain data on how effective their drug polices have been. The article in this book does not allow me to make any comments on the strengths and weaknesses of their field study because they did not go in depth of what the study
was.
Mitchell Yell and Michael Rozalski's major claim in their article, Random School Searches Ensure Safety and Are Constitutional is that student's privacy rights sometimes have to be waived to maintain a safe school environment. Students still are protected from unreasonable searches. School officials are permitted to search a student or his or her belongings if there is reasonable suspicion that the student is violating or may have violated school rules or the law. The authors also state that random searches serve as a deterrent. When we conduct random searches on students what kind of message are we sending? Are we treating every student as a suspect? What are other alternatives to keep our school safe? The authors have not conducted their own field study.
Snook, Hyman., Dangerous Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1999
Hyman Snook's major claim in the search and seizure part of his book is that our fear of drugs and violence in schools is not worth the erosion of civil liberties of students. He also believes that intrusive searches have a huge emotional impact on a student. I do agree with Snook to a certain extent. Depending on what type of environment the school is in, random searches and intrusive searches might be necessary. However, intrusive searches conducted to find lost or stolen property in my opinion is unconstitutional. Intrusive searches should only be conducted if a student or staff's safety will or is going to be compromised. Snook conducted a statewide survey of administrators in Pennsylvania on strip searches. He found no data regarding the success of strip searches. His respondents reported an average of about 13% successes for drugs and about 50 percent for weapons. The states that the search for weapons is less intrusive since most weapons can be easily seen. One question I have about his research is what part of the data is elementary, middle, or high school?
McCarthy, Marth M., Cambron-McCabe, Nelda H., and Thomas, Stephen B. Public School Law. 4th ed. Needham Heights: Allyn and Bacon, 1998
Martha McCarthy, Nelda Cambron-McCabe, and Stephen Thomas' main point is that due to case law, school officials cannot conduct unreasonable searches. However, the court states that "requiring a teacher to obtain a warrant before searching a child suspected of an infraction of school rules or criminal law would unduly interfere with the maintenance of the swift and informal disciplinary procedures needed in the schools." Lockers are considered school property and school personal can inspect lockers to prevent the use of lockers in illicit ways or for illegal purposes. In order to search a student's personal property, there needs to be an individualized suspicion that a violation of a law or school rule has occurred. I want to know if the drug problem in our public schools is out of control. This book is difficult to agree or disagree with because it is more of a guideline for teachers and students about their rights in a public school setting. The authors have not conduct a field research project.
Methodology:
All of my data collecting was done through qualitative interviews with school administration and parents. I wanted to collect the data through interviews because I needed each respondent to give their own opinion each question. Each interview was conducted in a location picked by the interviewee. My interview with a school campus supervisor was done outside. Another interview with the school resource officer was conducted in a restaurant. My interview with the vice principle was conducted in his office and the interview with the parents was done in their home. I wanted to interview students but there were too many obstacles to obtain parental consent. However, the school resource officer has been on assignment at the school for three years and has built a strong and stable rapport with the students. He has informed me that majority of the students are concerned about the escalated violence and drugs in their school. My participation rate on the interviews was excellent. I only had one interview that never came through. I kept making appointments with one of the vice principles but every time I showed up to do the interview, she either was dealing with a behavioral problem with a student, on a conference call, or was out on a family emergency. That was probably one of the frustrating things of this research project. All of the people I asked to interview said yes. Some interviews I conducted were not intended. For example, interviewing a campus supervisor who is also the assistant men's football coach, women's junior varsity coach, men's volleyball coach, and badminton coach helped me tremendously. Another person I did not think of interviewing the first time was a former alumni and currently in college. She was able to give some good insight from a younger generation perspective. I did not have to obtain parental consent with this individual because she is currently in college. I also chose to interview a teacher because after interviewing some of the others, many of them had negative comments about teachers not being involved in the school's effort to make the school safe. These are examples of what made my research go well. My sample size was a little small but I chose people that had direct contact with the students and dealing with behavior problems. It crossed my mind to interview the principle but after interviewing a few of the others, I realized that it was more important to interview the vice principles because the principle does not deal with the student's behavioral problems on a day to day basis. He is only consulted when his staff has run into a dead end.
Discussion:
We are all too familiar with the Columbine High School Massacre that occurred in 1999. In the aftermath of this unfortunate tragedy, the nation was forced to examine the safety and security of public schools and what preventative measures to take so an event like this would never take place again. While violence is an important issue to address, another difficult battle for school administration is keeping drugs away from students and school property. To combat these two problems, many schools have implemented a variety of ways to search for drug paraphernalia and weapons on students and their belongings. Such methods range from using police dogs to metal detectors to strip searches. Are these searches violating the rights of students? The Fourth Amendment guarantees, "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." Public authorities are normally required to have probable cause or a warrant to search a person. The data I have collected from my interviews with the school resource officer, campus supervisor, and vice principle show that if they were subject to the probable cause standard, it would greatly compromise school safety. Referring back to the T.L.O. case, the court concluded that the school environment warrants a reduction of the constraints to which searches by public officials are usually subject to. Public school administration should adhere to the reasonable suspicion standard. Reasonable suspicion is satisfied when two conditions exist: (1) the search is justified at its inception, meaning that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will reveal evidence that the student has violated or is violating the law or school rules, and (2) the search is reasonable related in scope to the circumstances that justified the search, meaning that the measures used to conduct the search are reasonable related to the objective of the search and that the search is not excessively intrusive in light of the student's age and sex and the nature of the offense. In my interview with the campus supervisor, vice principle, and school resource officer, they all agreed that any information about drug or weapon possession that is valid whether it was from a teacher, parent, or even another student, school administration has "the right, responsibility, and duty to conduct an appropriate search." School officials may have to depend on the reliability of witnesses in determining whether to search. Since there is a wide spectrum of possibilities, it is more likely that a principal would proceed in searching a student or a locker based on a tip from a teacher than from a student who is frequently in trouble. The campus supervisor I interviewed said that the best sources are the students themselves. He explained that students know more than anybody else, they have a community with in themselves and majority of them want to go to school in a safe, drug free environment. While interning for the school resource officer, I observed that instead of conducting the search himself, he would almost always ask one of the vice principles to conduct the search while he supervised. He explained that he was still a police officer and the school administration was acting in loco parentis-in the place of the parent-while students were at school. Under the doctrine of in loco parentis, school officials stand in place of parents during school hours, assuming both the authority and responsibility of the parents in disciplinary actions against the student. Ironically, while school administration is acting in place of the parent, some students and their parents have filed lawsuits against school districts to challenge their policies and procedures on searching students. Some schools have gone as far as requiring all students trying out for interscholastic athletic teams to submit to a urinalysis drug test. As part of the policy, student athletes were tested individually at the beginning of each season and randomly throughout the season. One of the questions I asked in my interviews was if students participating in any extra curricular activities or driving to school should be subject to a urinalysis drug test. Everyone had around the same opinion, no there should not be any tests conducted on students participating in extra curricular activities because that would be targeting a group of individuals. The Supreme Court had a different verdict in the Vernonia School District vs. Acton (1995) case involving whether it was constitutional to uphold a policy that required student athletes submit to a urinalysis drug test. The Court's opinion asserted that (1) students can not expect the same level of privacy as members of the general public or as free adults, (2) peeing in a cup without exposing your genitals directly to the view of a government official was a "negligible intrusion" on privacy, and (3) there is a compelling need for athletes, who are supposed models in the school community, to demonstrate that they are drug free because of rampant drug problems in the schools. Is there really a drug problem in our high schools or has the media blown the subject out of proportion? Who conducts these surveys on students using drugs? Do the responses reflect those of casual uses or habitual abusers?
Some schools use police dogs regularly to sniff out drugs in student's lockers and belongings. Have we stepped over the line and treated every student as a suspect? The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania came to a conclusion that searching student lockers was legal since student privacy regarding lockers was minimal and lockers were property of the school and subject to search. The police dogs were trained to alert his handler which specific lockers had drug paraphernalia which provided reasonable suspicion for further search. The data I collected showed that majority of the people I interviewed agreed that using police dogs would be a helpful tool in the battle of drugs on school campuses. The people who agreed that using the dogs had different responses on how many times the dogs should be used. The campus security officer thought that police dogs should only be used two to four times a year. The school resource officer wanted to search once a month in different areas around the school that would be picked randomly. A parent I interviewed objected to the whole idea altogether. She said that the "drug problem" is a growing concern but is not a growing problem and we should ignore the drugs entirely. The vice principle only wanted to use the police dogs in extreme circumstances that would compromise safety such as searching for bombs or weapons. He explained that if we used the dogs to search for drugs, the school administration would loose credibility from the students. While drugs harm the individual abusing them, violence in the public school can impact many more people on a grander scale.
Eight other mass shootings have occurred in America between 1996 and 1999 besides the one in Columbine. Is school violence on the rise? In spite of these mass shootings, statistics point toward a steady decline of violence in American schools. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1999 determined that "between 1991 and 1997, U.S. high school students became less likely to carry weapons, to engage in physical fights, and to be inured in physical fights." According to a 1998 report by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education, the probability of a child getting struck by lightning is one in a million, yet this chance is greater than that of a child being murdered on school grounds. Despite these credible statistics, the widely publicized string of school shootings has sent school administration and policy makers into a paranoid frenzy state. In the name of safety, some schools will go as far as conducting intrusive searches, also know as strip searches.
Intrusive searches can be extremely problematic for school officials. Intrusive searches should only be conducted if there is credible information that a student has in his or her possession a dangerous or illegal item that could create a severe hazard to the wellbeing and security of others in the school. Throughout the nation there have been countless incidents where school administration have overstepped their boundaries and used intrusive searches to search for money or property. Consistently courts have ruled against strip searches for money or property. The cases failed to meet the sense-of-urgency requirement determined by a ruling in the State ex. Rel. Galford v. Mark Anthony B., 433 S.E., 2d 41, in which the high court concluded that unless exigent circumstances necessitated an immediate search to protect the safety of other students, a warrantless strip search is impermissible. On the other hand, there have been cases where strip searches have been upheld by the courts. In Kentucky, the vice principle conducted a strip search on a high school student because he had a considerable amount of evidence that she was in possession of illegal substances. When his search turned up nothing, the student claimed her Fourth Amendment rights had been violated. The court ruled that in combination with the evidence collected against her and the amount of drugs being sought, the search was fully legal. In another incident, a student in Illinois was subjected to a nude search because school administration believed that he was concealing drugs in his pants. The court ruled that the search was legal because the administration had relied on numerous incidents and observations reported to create a reasonable suspicion the student was hiding drugs on him. The data I collected showed that majority of the respondents agreed that intrusive searches should only be conducted in extreme emergency circumstances in concerns with safety. One parent answered that school administration should contact the parents so they can conduct the search. A number of states passed laws that prohibit intrusive searches of public school students.
Some schools have taken a preventative measure and used metal detectors as a way to keep weapons out of schools. As with each new method policy makers implement to keep schools safe, metal detectors have also been the subject of litigation. In New York, a school official searched a student's backpack using a hand-held metal detector and uncovered a folder which contained a knife. The student was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and argued that the evidence should not be admissible in court because the search violated her constitutional rights. Instead of using the reasonableness standard set forth in the T.L.O. case, the court reasoned that searching high school students could be compared to searching a person at an airport or courthouse. One of the questions I asked in my interview was if metal detectors were necessary in high schools. I received mixed responses but some insightful points were brought up. One parent said that "school officials need to get a grip and we are already treating our kids like criminals." The vice principle said the use of metal detectors was impractical because the cost of monitoring would be astronomical. However, he did agree that in some special cases, based on the history of a school, metal detectors could be necessary. The school resource officer said that using metal detectors take away from the environment of the school. The campus supervisor believed that metal detectors should be put in every high school because it would act as deterrence. According to some of my other research, metal detectors and drug searches have partial success even in correctional institutions. Given that prisoners are able to obtain drugs and weapons during incarceration, how can schools hope to be successful using these techniques in their far more open institutions? I think that school administration under estimates our students. Kids are extremely clever and will not only find loopholes to get what they want but can adapt and adjust to anything you throw at them. One interviewee brought up a very important point, who decides what is a weapon? Pens, pencils, plastic forks and knives can be used as weapons. Obviously knives and guns are classified as weapons but what is the profile of a student who would bring such weapons into a school setting. We automatically assume that students attending inner city schools would be "packing heat" to protect themselves from rival gangs but each and every single one of the nine school shootings during 1996 to 1999, took place in rural or suburban schools in affluent neighborhoods. As we dive deeper into these uncharted waters, we uncovered what might have pushed these students to commit murder against their peers.
I know all too well what the pressure of high school life was like. The overwhelming need to be popular was what every teenager hoped for. Just like in real life, only a selected few could be popular. On the first day of high school you already knew what your place was. It is a never-ending, but trivialized, war: jocks and cheerleaders vs. the nerds, freaks, geeks, and fags. Is there a correlation between high school cliques and school violence? Students who are not coined as popular are ostracized and face verbal and physical abuse during their high school years. I remember as a junior in high school the jocks would throw raw eggs at the Goth kids for no reason at all. They never really got in trouble because they were looked at as "heroes." Another incident involved the jocks mutilating a tree that the Goth kids always hung around at. This type of emotional and violent behavior happens in varying degrees at schools across the country. The only thing society did not see coming was when the "outsiders" had had enough and decided to fight back. I think popular culture has a lot to do with influencing high school cliques. Movies and television constantly remind teenagers of how they are supposed to dress and behave. As I walked around the campus of the high school I was interning at I saw how poplar culture has influenced the students. Girls are wearing little or nothing. They parade around the halls in their short skirts and tight halter tops showing cleavage and as much skin as they can. The boys have their pants literally falling off their behinds and enormous diamond studded silver chains in shapes of dollar signs, marijuana leafs, and rude phrases hanging off their necks not to mention their fake grills (cosmetic dental metal apparatus featuring silver, gold, or platinum caps with diamond inlays jeweled to be worn over the teeth. ) Unpopular kids can be spotted in an instant, plain, proper fitting clothes, and boring, raggedy shoes. In an effort to curb school violence and promote school spirit, the idea of having a strict dress code or uniforms in public schools has appealed to school administrations across the nation.
The Long Beach Unified School District was the first public school district to endorse a mandatory uniform strategy. It has been documented that the enactment of this dress code resulted in a 32% percent decrease in school suspensions, a 51% decrease in fighting and an 18% decrease in vandalism with a significant improvement in attendance rates. In my interviews I asked what kinds of opinions they had about dress codes and uniforms in correlation with school safety. Amazingly the vice principle rejected the idea having uniforms because it could potentially be prohibitive. Depending on where the school district is, it could be financially crippling to provide the uniforms to low income families. For example, majority of the students in Oakland come from low income families and it would be impossible for the district to provide uniforms to all these students. Everyone I interviewed agreed that a strict dress code should be enforced. The high school I am interning at does have a dress code but it is not strictly enforced. Behavioral rules are almost never enforced by teachers and only inconsistently enforced by administrators. Personal stereos, beepers, hats, bandannas, hoods, and jewelry are all officially forbidden but unofficially tolerated. The parent I interviewed replied, "Yes on uniforms, it is hard to be bad or tough when you look like a golfer." The school resource officer believes that a strict dress code could greatly reduce potential problems he often sees such as, fights escalating from socioeconomic status, gang members sporting their colors, students being robbed for their pricy possessions, and easily identifying trespassers on school grounds. While I think that school dress codes would have an impact on school safety, I believe that as a teenager the need to express individualism would be too great and students would find ways to alter their uniforms to look different from everybody else.
Conclusion:
Five days a week for seven hours a day, public school students relinquish part of their fourth amendment rights at the door. They are subjected to searches by school administration on the reasonable suspicion standard instead of the probable cause standard to ensure that safety for both staff and students is administered. School administration must maintain the balance of student's individual Fourth Amendment rights and provide a safe and secure learning environment. Strict guidelines involving searching a student must be followed and communicated with everyone. If not, we teach our kids that the government can search without cause and that it is alright to surrender certain fourth amendment rights for various purposes such as the war on drugs.
March 7, 1980: two freshman girls in a New Jersey high school were caught smoking in the bathroom by a teacher. The teacher sent both girls to the principle's office since smoking in the bathroom was a violation of a school rule. Both girls were questioned by the Assistant Vice Principle, Theodore Choplick. In response to questioning by Mr. Choplick, one of the girls admitted that she was smoking in the bathroom. However, the other girl, T.L.O. denied that she had been smoking in the bathroom and claimed that she did not smoke at all. Mr. Choplick demanded to see T.L.O.'s purse. As Mr. Choplick opened the purse, the pack of cigarettes was clearly visible. As he reached into the purse for the cigarettes, he noticed a package of cigarette rolling papers. In Mr. Choplick's experience, high school students possessing rolling papers was a correlation …show more content…
to the use of marijuana. He then proceeded to search the purse intently to yield more evidence of drug use. His search exposed a tiny amount of marijuana, a pipe, a number of empty plastic bags, an extensive amount of money, a list of people who owed T.L.O. money, and two letters that implicated her for dealing marijuana. Mr. Choplick notified the police and T.L.O.'s mother and turned in all the evidence he found through his investigation. At the police station T.L.O. confessed to selling marijuana to high school students. On the basis of the confession and the evidence seized, the State brought delinquency charges against T.L.O. T.L.O. argued that the search of her purse violated her fourth amendment rights and the evidence seized should not be admissible in court because it was an unlawful search. Was Mr. Choplick's search of T.L.O.'s purse a violation of her fourth amendment rights? Do student even possess their constitutional rights in a school setting? With the growing concern of drug use and violence in our schools, should safety be our number one priority? Is illicit drug use or violence even a concern or just a figment of our imagination? After the Columbine High School massacre, every high school in American was on its tiptoes. Some high schools in America have taken drastic measures to curb school violence and drug use. Metal detectors, police dogs, intrusive searches, drug testing on students participating in extra curricular activities, and placement of police officers in the school environment have been some of the methods used. Do these methods force our schools to become more prison like and treat each student as a suspect? As popular culture takes over the minds of our students, school administration in conjunction with law enforcement are desperately seeking solutions to decrease delinquent behavior. MySpace which is known to mature individuals as another way of keeping in touch with friends and reconnecting with old friends has become somewhat of a breeding ground for trash talking high school students. These on going battles often get played out in fights on school property. Another effect popular culture has on students is the style of clothing. Is there a correlation to dress code and school safety? Does the school at in place of the parent and should the administration be allowed to search students under the reasonable suspicion standard? This paper seeks to examine if the right to search students in a school setting violates the fourth amendment and is school safety compromised if it is. Alameda High School is the central focus of examination because that is where I was interning at.
Literature Review:
Carroll, Jamuna., ed. Students' Rights. Farmington Hills: Thomson Gale, 2005
Charles Haynes' major claim in his article, School Dress Codes Limit Students' Freedom of Expression is that while allowing students to wear offensive clothing in school may create an environment of conflict and diversity, such controversy is vital to any free society. His article focuses more on students wearing offensive t-shirts rather then the way students are dressing; for example, sagging of the jeans, low cut shirts on girls, short mini skirts, grills, chains, etc. I do agree that dress codes do limit students' freedom of expression. I also agree with the decision the U.S. Supreme Court made in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District that "school officials many not ban student expression just because they don't like it-or because they think it might cause conflict. The school must have evidence that the student expression would lead to either (a) a substantial disruption of the school environment, or (b) an invasion of the rights of others." The author has not done his own field research.
Stephen Daniels' major claim in his article, School Dress Codes Are Necessary and Constitutional is that instituting a dress code promotes a positive learning environment, reduces conflicts associated with name brands and gang clothing, and decreases the gap between poor and rich students. Daniels' article makes many convincing arguments but he doesn't seem to be able to address in my opinion the most important issue: money. How would poor families pay for the uniforms to comply with the dress code? The school district would probably pick up the tab for families that could not afford it. That probably would not pose a problem in an upper class school district. However, how would a school district pay for uniforms if half the families in that district were low income? That would be financially crippling. The author has not done his own field research but has included statistics from school having the dress code policy.
Joe Blankenau and Mark Leeper's major claim in their article, Random School Searches Undermine Students' Privacy Rights is that search policies promote authorities' morals and overstate the dangers of drugs in schools to justify pointless searches.
The authors also state that suspicionless searches teach students that rights do not matter. I disagree with the author's point of view on overstating the dangers of drugs in schools. I believe it is a growing concern in our public school system. How do we expect a student to concentrate in class if he is stoned all the time? I think instituting random school searches should be on a case by case basis by school district. Blankenau and Leeper's article do not raise any issues of escalating school violence. Are weapons growing concerns like drugs are? The authors surveyed responses of Nebraska High School Principles to obtain data on how effective their drug polices have been. The article in this book does not allow me to make any comments on the strengths and weaknesses of their field study because they did not go in depth of what the study
was.
Mitchell Yell and Michael Rozalski's major claim in their article, Random School Searches Ensure Safety and Are Constitutional is that student's privacy rights sometimes have to be waived to maintain a safe school environment. Students still are protected from unreasonable searches. School officials are permitted to search a student or his or her belongings if there is reasonable suspicion that the student is violating or may have violated school rules or the law. The authors also state that random searches serve as a deterrent. When we conduct random searches on students what kind of message are we sending? Are we treating every student as a suspect? What are other alternatives to keep our school safe? The authors have not conducted their own field study.
Snook, Hyman., Dangerous Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1999
Hyman Snook's major claim in the search and seizure part of his book is that our fear of drugs and violence in schools is not worth the erosion of civil liberties of students. He also believes that intrusive searches have a huge emotional impact on a student. I do agree with Snook to a certain extent. Depending on what type of environment the school is in, random searches and intrusive searches might be necessary. However, intrusive searches conducted to find lost or stolen property in my opinion is unconstitutional. Intrusive searches should only be conducted if a student or staff's safety will or is going to be compromised. Snook conducted a statewide survey of administrators in Pennsylvania on strip searches. He found no data regarding the success of strip searches. His respondents reported an average of about 13% successes for drugs and about 50 percent for weapons. The states that the search for weapons is less intrusive since most weapons can be easily seen. One question I have about his research is what part of the data is elementary, middle, or high school?
McCarthy, Marth M., Cambron-McCabe, Nelda H., and Thomas, Stephen B. Public School Law. 4th ed. Needham Heights: Allyn and Bacon, 1998
Martha McCarthy, Nelda Cambron-McCabe, and Stephen Thomas' main point is that due to case law, school officials cannot conduct unreasonable searches. However, the court states that "requiring a teacher to obtain a warrant before searching a child suspected of an infraction of school rules or criminal law would unduly interfere with the maintenance of the swift and informal disciplinary procedures needed in the schools." Lockers are considered school property and school personal can inspect lockers to prevent the use of lockers in illicit ways or for illegal purposes. In order to search a student's personal property, there needs to be an individualized suspicion that a violation of a law or school rule has occurred. I want to know if the drug problem in our public schools is out of control. This book is difficult to agree or disagree with because it is more of a guideline for teachers and students about their rights in a public school setting. The authors have not conduct a field research project.
Methodology:
All of my data collecting was done through qualitative interviews with school administration and parents. I wanted to collect the data through interviews because I needed each respondent to give their own opinion each question. Each interview was conducted in a location picked by the interviewee. My interview with a school campus supervisor was done outside. Another interview with the school resource officer was conducted in a restaurant. My interview with the vice principle was conducted in his office and the interview with the parents was done in their home. I wanted to interview students but there were too many obstacles to obtain parental consent. However, the school resource officer has been on assignment at the school for three years and has built a strong and stable rapport with the students. He has informed me that majority of the students are concerned about the escalated violence and drugs in their school. My participation rate on the interviews was excellent. I only had one interview that never came through. I kept making appointments with one of the vice principles but every time I showed up to do the interview, she either was dealing with a behavioral problem with a student, on a conference call, or was out on a family emergency. That was probably one of the frustrating things of this research project. All of the people I asked to interview said yes. Some interviews I conducted were not intended. For example, interviewing a campus supervisor who is also the assistant men's football coach, women's junior varsity coach, men's volleyball coach, and badminton coach helped me tremendously. Another person I did not think of interviewing the first time was a former alumni and currently in college. She was able to give some good insight from a younger generation perspective. I did not have to obtain parental consent with this individual because she is currently in college. I also chose to interview a teacher because after interviewing some of the others, many of them had negative comments about teachers not being involved in the school's effort to make the school safe. These are examples of what made my research go well. My sample size was a little small but I chose people that had direct contact with the students and dealing with behavior problems. It crossed my mind to interview the principle but after interviewing a few of the others, I realized that it was more important to interview the vice principles because the principle does not deal with the student's behavioral problems on a day to day basis. He is only consulted when his staff has run into a dead end.
Discussion:
We are all too familiar with the Columbine High School Massacre that occurred in 1999. In the aftermath of this unfortunate tragedy, the nation was forced to examine the safety and security of public schools and what preventative measures to take so an event like this would never take place again. While violence is an important issue to address, another difficult battle for school administration is keeping drugs away from students and school property. To combat these two problems, many schools have implemented a variety of ways to search for drug paraphernalia and weapons on students and their belongings. Such methods range from using police dogs to metal detectors to strip searches. Are these searches violating the rights of students? The Fourth Amendment guarantees, "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." Public authorities are normally required to have probable cause or a warrant to search a person. The data I have collected from my interviews with the school resource officer, campus supervisor, and vice principle show that if they were subject to the probable cause standard, it would greatly compromise school safety. Referring back to the T.L.O. case, the court concluded that the school environment warrants a reduction of the constraints to which searches by public officials are usually subject to. Public school administration should adhere to the reasonable suspicion standard. Reasonable suspicion is satisfied when two conditions exist: (1) the search is justified at its inception, meaning that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will reveal evidence that the student has violated or is violating the law or school rules, and (2) the search is reasonable related in scope to the circumstances that justified the search, meaning that the measures used to conduct the search are reasonable related to the objective of the search and that the search is not excessively intrusive in light of the student's age and sex and the nature of the offense. In my interview with the campus supervisor, vice principle, and school resource officer, they all agreed that any information about drug or weapon possession that is valid whether it was from a teacher, parent, or even another student, school administration has "the right, responsibility, and duty to conduct an appropriate search." School officials may have to depend on the reliability of witnesses in determining whether to search. Since there is a wide spectrum of possibilities, it is more likely that a principal would proceed in searching a student or a locker based on a tip from a teacher than from a student who is frequently in trouble. The campus supervisor I interviewed said that the best sources are the students themselves. He explained that students know more than anybody else, they have a community with in themselves and majority of them want to go to school in a safe, drug free environment. While interning for the school resource officer, I observed that instead of conducting the search himself, he would almost always ask one of the vice principles to conduct the search while he supervised. He explained that he was still a police officer and the school administration was acting in loco parentis-in the place of the parent-while students were at school. Under the doctrine of in loco parentis, school officials stand in place of parents during school hours, assuming both the authority and responsibility of the parents in disciplinary actions against the student. Ironically, while school administration is acting in place of the parent, some students and their parents have filed lawsuits against school districts to challenge their policies and procedures on searching students. Some schools have gone as far as requiring all students trying out for interscholastic athletic teams to submit to a urinalysis drug test. As part of the policy, student athletes were tested individually at the beginning of each season and randomly throughout the season. One of the questions I asked in my interviews was if students participating in any extra curricular activities or driving to school should be subject to a urinalysis drug test. Everyone had around the same opinion, no there should not be any tests conducted on students participating in extra curricular activities because that would be targeting a group of individuals. The Supreme Court had a different verdict in the Vernonia School District vs. Acton (1995) case involving whether it was constitutional to uphold a policy that required student athletes submit to a urinalysis drug test. The Court's opinion asserted that (1) students can not expect the same level of privacy as members of the general public or as free adults, (2) peeing in a cup without exposing your genitals directly to the view of a government official was a "negligible intrusion" on privacy, and (3) there is a compelling need for athletes, who are supposed models in the school community, to demonstrate that they are drug free because of rampant drug problems in the schools. Is there really a drug problem in our high schools or has the media blown the subject out of proportion? Who conducts these surveys on students using drugs? Do the responses reflect those of casual uses or habitual abusers?
Some schools use police dogs regularly to sniff out drugs in student's lockers and belongings. Have we stepped over the line and treated every student as a suspect? The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania came to a conclusion that searching student lockers was legal since student privacy regarding lockers was minimal and lockers were property of the school and subject to search. The police dogs were trained to alert his handler which specific lockers had drug paraphernalia which provided reasonable suspicion for further search. The data I collected showed that majority of the people I interviewed agreed that using police dogs would be a helpful tool in the battle of drugs on school campuses. The people who agreed that using the dogs had different responses on how many times the dogs should be used. The campus security officer thought that police dogs should only be used two to four times a year. The school resource officer wanted to search once a month in different areas around the school that would be picked randomly. A parent I interviewed objected to the whole idea altogether. She said that the "drug problem" is a growing concern but is not a growing problem and we should ignore the drugs entirely. The vice principle only wanted to use the police dogs in extreme circumstances that would compromise safety such as searching for bombs or weapons. He explained that if we used the dogs to search for drugs, the school administration would loose credibility from the students. While drugs harm the individual abusing them, violence in the public school can impact many more people on a grander scale.
Eight other mass shootings have occurred in America between 1996 and 1999 besides the one in Columbine. Is school violence on the rise? In spite of these mass shootings, statistics point toward a steady decline of violence in American schools. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1999 determined that "between 1991 and 1997, U.S. high school students became less likely to carry weapons, to engage in physical fights, and to be inured in physical fights." According to a 1998 report by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education, the probability of a child getting struck by lightning is one in a million, yet this chance is greater than that of a child being murdered on school grounds. Despite these credible statistics, the widely publicized string of school shootings has sent school administration and policy makers into a paranoid frenzy state. In the name of safety, some schools will go as far as conducting intrusive searches, also know as strip searches.
Intrusive searches can be extremely problematic for school officials. Intrusive searches should only be conducted if there is credible information that a student has in his or her possession a dangerous or illegal item that could create a severe hazard to the wellbeing and security of others in the school. Throughout the nation there have been countless incidents where school administration have overstepped their boundaries and used intrusive searches to search for money or property. Consistently courts have ruled against strip searches for money or property. The cases failed to meet the sense-of-urgency requirement determined by a ruling in the State ex. Rel. Galford v. Mark Anthony B., 433 S.E., 2d 41, in which the high court concluded that unless exigent circumstances necessitated an immediate search to protect the safety of other students, a warrantless strip search is impermissible. On the other hand, there have been cases where strip searches have been upheld by the courts. In Kentucky, the vice principle conducted a strip search on a high school student because he had a considerable amount of evidence that she was in possession of illegal substances. When his search turned up nothing, the student claimed her Fourth Amendment rights had been violated. The court ruled that in combination with the evidence collected against her and the amount of drugs being sought, the search was fully legal. In another incident, a student in Illinois was subjected to a nude search because school administration believed that he was concealing drugs in his pants. The court ruled that the search was legal because the administration had relied on numerous incidents and observations reported to create a reasonable suspicion the student was hiding drugs on him. The data I collected showed that majority of the respondents agreed that intrusive searches should only be conducted in extreme emergency circumstances in concerns with safety. One parent answered that school administration should contact the parents so they can conduct the search. A number of states passed laws that prohibit intrusive searches of public school students.
Some schools have taken a preventative measure and used metal detectors as a way to keep weapons out of schools. As with each new method policy makers implement to keep schools safe, metal detectors have also been the subject of litigation. In New York, a school official searched a student's backpack using a hand-held metal detector and uncovered a folder which contained a knife. The student was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and argued that the evidence should not be admissible in court because the search violated her constitutional rights. Instead of using the reasonableness standard set forth in the T.L.O. case, the court reasoned that searching high school students could be compared to searching a person at an airport or courthouse. One of the questions I asked in my interview was if metal detectors were necessary in high schools. I received mixed responses but some insightful points were brought up. One parent said that "school officials need to get a grip and we are already treating our kids like criminals." The vice principle said the use of metal detectors was impractical because the cost of monitoring would be astronomical. However, he did agree that in some special cases, based on the history of a school, metal detectors could be necessary. The school resource officer said that using metal detectors take away from the environment of the school. The campus supervisor believed that metal detectors should be put in every high school because it would act as deterrence. According to some of my other research, metal detectors and drug searches have partial success even in correctional institutions. Given that prisoners are able to obtain drugs and weapons during incarceration, how can schools hope to be successful using these techniques in their far more open institutions? I think that school administration under estimates our students. Kids are extremely clever and will not only find loopholes to get what they want but can adapt and adjust to anything you throw at them. One interviewee brought up a very important point, who decides what is a weapon? Pens, pencils, plastic forks and knives can be used as weapons. Obviously knives and guns are classified as weapons but what is the profile of a student who would bring such weapons into a school setting. We automatically assume that students attending inner city schools would be "packing heat" to protect themselves from rival gangs but each and every single one of the nine school shootings during 1996 to 1999, took place in rural or suburban schools in affluent neighborhoods. As we dive deeper into these uncharted waters, we uncovered what might have pushed these students to commit murder against their peers.
I know all too well what the pressure of high school life was like. The overwhelming need to be popular was what every teenager hoped for. Just like in real life, only a selected few could be popular. On the first day of high school you already knew what your place was. It is a never-ending, but trivialized, war: jocks and cheerleaders vs. the nerds, freaks, geeks, and fags. Is there a correlation between high school cliques and school violence? Students who are not coined as popular are ostracized and face verbal and physical abuse during their high school years. I remember as a junior in high school the jocks would throw raw eggs at the Goth kids for no reason at all. They never really got in trouble because they were looked at as "heroes." Another incident involved the jocks mutilating a tree that the Goth kids always hung around at. This type of emotional and violent behavior happens in varying degrees at schools across the country. The only thing society did not see coming was when the "outsiders" had had enough and decided to fight back. I think popular culture has a lot to do with influencing high school cliques. Movies and television constantly remind teenagers of how they are supposed to dress and behave. As I walked around the campus of the high school I was interning at I saw how poplar culture has influenced the students. Girls are wearing little or nothing. They parade around the halls in their short skirts and tight halter tops showing cleavage and as much skin as they can. The boys have their pants literally falling off their behinds and enormous diamond studded silver chains in shapes of dollar signs, marijuana leafs, and rude phrases hanging off their necks not to mention their fake grills (cosmetic dental metal apparatus featuring silver, gold, or platinum caps with diamond inlays jeweled to be worn over the teeth. ) Unpopular kids can be spotted in an instant, plain, proper fitting clothes, and boring, raggedy shoes. In an effort to curb school violence and promote school spirit, the idea of having a strict dress code or uniforms in public schools has appealed to school administrations across the nation.
The Long Beach Unified School District was the first public school district to endorse a mandatory uniform strategy. It has been documented that the enactment of this dress code resulted in a 32% percent decrease in school suspensions, a 51% decrease in fighting and an 18% decrease in vandalism with a significant improvement in attendance rates. In my interviews I asked what kinds of opinions they had about dress codes and uniforms in correlation with school safety. Amazingly the vice principle rejected the idea having uniforms because it could potentially be prohibitive. Depending on where the school district is, it could be financially crippling to provide the uniforms to low income families. For example, majority of the students in Oakland come from low income families and it would be impossible for the district to provide uniforms to all these students. Everyone I interviewed agreed that a strict dress code should be enforced. The high school I am interning at does have a dress code but it is not strictly enforced. Behavioral rules are almost never enforced by teachers and only inconsistently enforced by administrators. Personal stereos, beepers, hats, bandannas, hoods, and jewelry are all officially forbidden but unofficially tolerated. The parent I interviewed replied, "Yes on uniforms, it is hard to be bad or tough when you look like a golfer." The school resource officer believes that a strict dress code could greatly reduce potential problems he often sees such as, fights escalating from socioeconomic status, gang members sporting their colors, students being robbed for their pricy possessions, and easily identifying trespassers on school grounds. While I think that school dress codes would have an impact on school safety, I believe that as a teenager the need to express individualism would be too great and students would find ways to alter their uniforms to look different from everybody else.
Conclusion:
Five days a week for seven hours a day, public school students relinquish part of their fourth amendment rights at the door. They are subjected to searches by school administration on the reasonable suspicion standard instead of the probable cause standard to ensure that safety for both staff and students is administered. School administration must maintain the balance of student's individual Fourth Amendment rights and provide a safe and secure learning environment. Strict guidelines involving searching a student must be followed and communicated with everyone. If not, we teach our kids that the government can search without cause and that it is alright to surrender certain fourth amendment rights for various purposes such as the war on drugs.