<p>My daughter’s school had a random search by drug dogs yesterday. They locked down the school for two hours. No one could leave the classroom in which they were in for any reason. The children in the classes that were selected for the search (not my daughter’s) had to roll up their pants, raise their shirts, go outside into the cold and leave all of their possessions in the classroom. Their bodies were searched outside. All back packs were searched while they were out of the class, and cell phones taken out and put on the desks. A few kids got suspended from school for having lighters and one for having “snuff”. Is this going on in high schools everywhere?</p>
<p>That’s absurd. I would’ve walked out. (Which is what I did when my school tried to do something similar)</p>
<p>I cannot believe they suspended people for having lighters. That’s absolutely absurd. Lighters have legitimate uses, but even if they are being used for smoking or something like that, doe not make the lighter itself contraband.</p>
<p>Assuming this is a high school, as well, is there a policy against having tobacco on school grounds? What if one of the students with “snuff” was of age? (Entirely possible at a high school)</p>
<p>What a stupid exercise.</p>
<p>No, all schools do not do this. I would think a school would have to have parental permision to physically search a student without representation. It also seems dangerous to me for the school because it only takes one kid to say they were searched “inappropriately” to start a whole different sort of proceeding. Wow.</p>
<p>This has been happening at my d’s school for a couple of years. They also check the cars in the student parking lot.
There are a number of things that have been going on in our school system that infuriate me and that’s why I am thrilled that my youngest will be out of the system in a few more months.
FYI - We live in a fairly affluent area in a highly regarded school district if that means anything (if people might think it is only inner city or poorer schools that have this type of situation)</p>
<p>D came home from school the other evening and told us that they all had to go out into the hallway for a randowm drug test. She said it like it was quite a common occurence. Don’t know if backpacks were physically emptied or not, but the dogs were used in both the classroom and hallway. I think she would have mentioned if they had to adjust their clothing, but now I will ask for more details.</p>
<p>She loved the fact that after the search was done, a trainee dog was brought in, with a bag of drugs laid on the floor next to her and the young black lab was walked up and down the hall without ever noticing the drugs. I guess he’ll be a trainee for a while longer. When this exercise was done, they all got to pet the trainee dog.</p>
<p>My school has drug dogs come and sniff the lockers once in a while, but I don’t think we actually lock down while it’s going on. </p>
<p>At many schools, 1of42, use of tobacco on campus is prohibited even if you’re of age. I know it is at my school.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a huge deal. What are all these “legitimate” uses that lighters have on a school campus? I can’t think of any. Now while I agree that suspension as a result is a bit extreme. But you have to realize that schools are private government property…the kids are choosing to be there, and therefore the school can pretty much do whatever it wants. They aren’t subject to the same constitutional rights.</p>
<p>HGFM: If there is a rule against tobacco on that school campus, then too bad for those students. But just because they have it doesn’t mean they’re using it on campus. What if they smoke outside school, and just have cigarettes on them because they can’t just make them disappear once they step onto campus? Anyways though, this is a minor objection.</p>
<p>But for lighters, I would never, ever support rules against having lighters. They don’t have to have legitimate uses on a school campus. They have legitimate uses outside. But even if we assume that their only use is to smoke, unless the student who has the lighter also has tobacco I see no reason for there to be any disciplinary action.</p>
<p>I never said anything about constitution rights, or anything like that, merely that the rules in place were stupi.</p>
<p>On another interesting note, though, what happens if a student objects? If this is a private school, I see them having no real right to complain. But kids are compelled to attend at least public school - it’s absurd to compel a student to attend, then violate their privacy rights, and punish them if they object.</p>
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<p>What privacy rights?</p>
<p>^Exactly.</p>
<p>I don’t know how large your school was, 1of42, but mine has 4,000 students, plus about 400 staff members. We have no privacy in the first place.</p>
<p>Even if they smoke outside of school, once they step onto school campus they are breaking the rules. There is no need for students to bring tobacco onto a school campus, and they know it is against the rules.</p>
<p>Private school would indeed be a different issue. But even with the lighters-if you’re going to use it outside campus, then there’s no reason for you to have it on campus, is there? Leave it in your car. If you take the bus, I’m sorry but too bad. I have no sympathy for these kids because they knew the school’s rules and they chose to break them.</p>
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<p>Um. Compulsory school attendance, anyone? Constitutional rights don’t all fly out the window when you enter a public school - this is why, for instance, we don’t have school-organized prayer in public schools.</p>
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<p>Maybe that bit in the 4th amendment about unreasonable search and seizure. If there’s a reason to believe that a kid has drugs in their backpack, that’s different, but if it was a random search then this was not the case.</p>
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<p>Lighting a Bunsen burner? I always burned myself or broke the match when I tried to use matches. Desire to have some source of light if there’s a power outage? Singeing the ends of a rope so that you can stick it cleanly through the grommets of a banner to advertise the senior prom?</p>
<p>Most schools have strikers to light bunsen burners. If there’s a power outage, again, most schools have flashlights. And I can’t remember the last time I saw someone use rope to hang a banner. </p>
<p>Even if you’re at a public school, you are choosing to be there. If you don’t like the rule that school has, you’re free to transfer to another school.</p>
<p>Again, the school system-public or private-is not subject to 4th amendment rights, because the school is private government property.</p>
<p>jessiehl: Thanks. Good legitimate uses for a lighter, too. ;)</p>
<p>HGFM, WashDad: I have a strong objection to schools that children are forced to attend (public schools) having the power to violate the privacy rights of students like that. It is unacceptable, in my mind, to compel a student to attend and then compel them to allow their rights to be violated.</p>
<p>Like jessiehl said, rights don’t fly out the window when you enter a public school. And that would be very clear to you if you’d pay attention to the constitutional challenges to public school practices. Private schools are one issue. Public, taxpayer-funded schools are quite another.</p>
<p>HGFM: You don’t get to just dispute every use of lighters. The point is, they can have legitimate uses. And even if they aren’t being used for those, it is absurd to punish students for having them.</p>
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<p>At our school, only those who are involved in school ec’s are called upon to be part of the random drug testing program. That’s the administration’s way to get around the problems with random drug testing of anyone, without any probable cause.</p>
<p>The biggest problem is that these programs cost $$. The school got a grant to pay for the testing.</p>
<p>Oh, 1of42, I’m not saying it’s right that they get to do it. I’m just saying it’s not like they’re completely wrong.</p>
<p>And it’s like I said, I have a problem sympathizing with students who chose to break known rules, even if it may have been for a legitimate reason.</p>
<p>Clearly, people assume they have privacy rights that they don’t.</p>
<p>Our HS handbook requires parental and student signatures on it. I haven’t looked at one recently, but I do know it allows for locker searches. (The body searches, and lifting clothing, would be a problem for me if it happened to one of my kids, though). </p>
<p>The handbook also has a list of banned objects. Don’t know if lighters are on there, but I would expect them to be. Lighters cause fire. I can imagine, for instance, a kid in a bathroom setting off the smoke detector because he has a test next period. There are much tamer, more “useful” items that are forbidden at our local HS, including hats, nail files, baseball bats…</p>
<p>I remember one kid getting suspended because he had a baseball bat in his car. He wasn’t on the school baseball team, and therefore wasn’t allowed to have it on school property. Even though it was locked in his car, in the parking lot. We kept a hammer in our car, (for breaking the window in an emergency) and had to remember to remove it whenever a kid drove that car to school.</p>
<p>Here, I found it;
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<p>All tobacco products are forbidden as well.</p>
<p>Edit - looking through the handbook, there are a lot of rules I didn’t even know were in there. (Yeah, guess I didn’t read it close enough. It’s is a fairly thick book.) LIke this:</p>
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<p>Our conservative House of Representatives (pre-Dem take over) passed a bill in Sept 2006 which would have actually permitted STRIP searches by school officials. (It never made it to the Senate.)</p>
<p>[Drug</a> Policy Alliance: House Approves Strip Search Bill](<a href=“http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/092006search.cfm]Drug”>http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/092006search.cfm)</p>
<p>So odd, huh? Usually the conservatives are the party of “individual rights,” aren’t they?! ;)</p>
<p>Maybe I’m naive and idealistic, but I find much of what is listed there, binx, to be objectionable.</p>
<p>I’ve also protested many similar things at my own school. For example, I fenced for a time, and would fence in the club at my school. But I also fenced outside of school. So I would keep my equipment (the foil being the object of interest in this case) in my locker.</p>
<p>At one point I got given a bunch of crap by an administrator about how I was keeping a “weapon” in my locker, and given the ultimatum to leave it with the fencing master (located in the elementary school portion of the school) or have it confiscated. I ignored the ultimatum, and then the next time the administrator tried to confiscate it, went above his head to the principal of the school, and ultimately raised enough crap about the absurdity of the rule (people were allowed to keep hockey sticks and baseball bats, both far more deadly than a foil, wherever they wanted) that it was changed and I stopped getting crap.</p>
<p>I just really hate rules that are so wide-ranging with no really good reason for it.</p>
<p>As much as it pains me that it is this way, public school students have next to no rights while at school. </p>
<p>“Bong hits for Jesus”? OUT OF HERE!</p>
<p>But wait, the right to pray may be an exception.</p>
<p>About the only right public school kids have is to not be abused; school administration actions must be view in that light. “Normal” searches are probably not abuse.</p>