Did you know that every day, students are pulled out of class and searched?

Students are searched under the implementation of reasonable suspicion, which means teachers or officials don’t need significant evidence or a warrant in order to search a student. A well-known case, “New Jersey vs TLO,” is an example of an unreasonable search.

TLO and her friend were smoking in the girls bathroom at their high school, when a teacher caught them. Her friend admitted to smoking, but TLO denied it. The principal demanded to see her purse, and found evidence that she was also selling marijuana at school. TLO was arrested. She argued that her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures had been violated. The court sided with the school, so TLO took her case to the Supreme Court, which found that the search was unreasonable, and the evidence could not be used. However, the effectiveness of these searches must be considered.

According to Dennis Hartman, who wrote an article titled, Pros and Cons of School Locker Searches, “Finding contraband material such as stolen property, drugs or weapons in a student' s locker is an easy way to establish guilt and know which students to punish for theft or other violations of school policy. Locker searches can be localized to the lockers of suspected students or drug-sniffing dogs can alert administrators to lockers that may contain illegal substances or drug paraphernalia. Besides its effectiveness in practice, the very presence of a school locker search policy can be an effective deterrent. If students know their lockers are subject to search, they may be less likely to bring banned items to school in the first place, making the school environment safer.”

On the contrary, Hartman does include that “School locker searches also consume valuable time for administrators, security guards and teachers who conduct them. If a school decides to institute a locker search policy, there is the added need for time to bring the issue up at a school board or parent-teacher association meetings, along with the time and effort to send notices to students and parents alerting them of the new policy.”

So you decide: Are student searches a constitutional thing to do, and is it worth the time?


<Nichole Kim George K. Porter Middle School 8th Grad>