Was it okay to strip search a 13 year old girl at school?

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Permalink Reply by george mayer on April 26, 2009 at 6:28pm

Here's the story: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/19/scotus.strip.search/
It sounds like a pretty horrible violation of privacy, especially because she was 13. It seems that there must be better ways of dealing with such things. I bet most would agree. But what if it was something more serious? say an alleged weapon? Is it never ok, or are there special circumstances? Is there a place to draw the line?

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Permalink Reply by Nora on April 26, 2009 at 9:09pm

Thanks for posting the link. I agree that it was uncalled for to strip search a thirteen year old girl especially because the reason was that someone else had allegedly gotten asprin from the girl.
I'm not sure how I would feel if is was a weapon. On one hand, a weapon would pose a threat to the rest of the people in the building, but on the other hand, a strip search is a violation of privacy that I'm not sure schools should be entitled to do. If the safety issue was a weapon though, a person would not have to strip down completely, so it would not be as much on an invasion of privacy.
I think that with matters concerning safety, the police should be in charge of what happens. A lot of schools have a police officer either on the grounds or near that could be notified that could make a good choice about what should be done.
What do other people think? Who should make the decision about how to deal with students who are a "safety threat" in school?

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Permalink Reply by Jacob on May 6, 2009 at 10:45pm

I think it was wrong her rights were vilotaed and what 13 year old has drugs.

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Permalink Reply by Kim FB on May 12, 2009 at 12:51pm

I lean toward Jacob's reply here. The key word you used, Nora, was "threat". I mean, how do we define "threat"? I think that one problem in our society is adults' perspectives on adolescents. Adolescents are capable of AMAZING things, and we tend to treat them as young children and then release them into the world of work and/or college and expect them to act like adults. In this atmosphere, students respond as children when they're capable of more. And I don't think that many of them are aware of their right to say, "No, in order to search me, you will need a lawyer." I'd bet most feel they have little power in this situation. And, I think adults like having the "control". Unfortunately this doesn't get anyone anywhere.

In Milwaukee, on the SSO site there, students are working with the police and Milwaukee Public Schools to have students more involved in the process of putting police in schools. One of the goals of the police is to build better relationships with the community. I'd imagine this sort of thing isn't going to build the trust needed for that.

Also, I think in the Mpls safety group AND in MKE we're finding out that teachers fear the students. One can understand, then, why they might overreact. But perhaps they also need a reality check. Not to mention that we need to do a lot of work to make schools' overall cultures drastically different. This is possible under certain conditions...

So, Nora, to answer the question, I think citizens (a spectrum of students and parents) AND police AND school leaders AND teachers should all come together and figure out how to make these decisions.

I'd be interested in how you might advise a group working on this based on the SSO safety group findings last year and what the MKE students are doing today?

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Permalink Reply by george mayer on May 13, 2009 at 3:46pm

I think we have reached a consensus that the girl's rights were severely violated, so i think we should turn this in the direction kim is suggesting.

How do we get students into the conversation on stopping such incidents? It seems that the problem stems from a deep-seated lack of trust between teachers and students, which seeps into every aspect of schools. So i think the students in milwaukee that are trying to repair the relationship b/w students and police are moving in the right direction, but i think it will ultimately, like kim said, take the cooperation of everybody involved.

What do you think about forming panels in schools comprising students, teacher and administers that could meet monthly and discuss current issues? I think the first step is dialogue.

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Permalink Reply by Nora on May 15, 2009 at 4:57pm

I think you guys bring up a good point in tying it back to the trust between teachers and students. And possibly not just teachers and students but the overall lack of trust of adolescents in general in the community.
When doing the bullying in schools project last year, we did come to the conclusion that a better relationship between students and teachers is helpful in many ways, including reducing bullying. I feel that if students and teachers had more trust for each other, there would also be less suspensions, students would be more motivated to get good grades and the school environment would be a better place in general.
One of the things that will probably have to be dealt with in order for there to be a better student-teacher connection is the generation gap. It is often the case that kids and teens do not spend a lot of time with adults, which can lead to gaps in communication between the ages. These are gaps that can easily be filled but time needs to be spent bridging them.
Unfortunately, in our interviews and such last year, the question of how to improve trust was rarely brought up. So what are people's ideas on how to improve trust between students and teachers?

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Permalink Reply by george mayer on May 18, 2009 at 1:28am

Nora, I wonder if you could help me break it down even further. What in your experience working on the bullying program, or just general experience as a student leads to the lack of trust in the first place. Do you think teachers walk in their first day not trusting their students? that would seem weird. There must be a breakdown somewhere? Where does the trust stop? or does it never start?

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Permalink Reply by Nora on May 18, 2009 at 8:50pm

I don't think that teachers go into the job purposely distrusting students but that they go in with a cautious attitude. Obviously, I have never been a teacher, so I don't know for sure, but it seems like a lot of them view it as, "I am here to teach these students," which is true, but just teaching them does not involve trust. Many teachers do not bother building that trust. I feel like the innocent until proven guilty does not often apply to these types of situations, but more of guilty until proven innocent. Since you are only with the teacher for a year, most students do not get to prove their innocence.
It would be interesting to get a teacher involved in this discussion.

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Permalink Reply by Kirsten on May 24, 2009 at 10:33pm

We listened to some of the oral arguments in my AP govt and it's actually a lot more complicated than just a school nurse strip-searching a girl. I was kind of on the side of the student until a few kids in my class started saying "as soon as the supreme court rules that you can't strip search me, I'm always going to store my drugs in my underwear. They can get in my backpack, but they can't search me!" That concerned me. I would definately be wary to give schools unrestricted power, but some school authority on this issue is definately necessary.

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Permalink Reply by Brett on May 25, 2009 at 7:24pm

I think there is another angle to view this issue from. Prevention. Schools, at least Minneapolis, have cut health programs immensely in the past ten years. When I started my school had a full health program, a teacher designated as the health teacher, who had the answers to all your questions. She was unfortunately phased out by my 6th grade year. Because of that program I knew more about health topics than any other kid I knew at any other school. This program kept my close friends and me clean, and I know it has had other positive impacts on the habits of students around me, and myself. Why is this gone?

I think a lot of schools are forced to the last resort of dealing with these problems more, and more often. Is there something we can do to prevent more cases from getting to this point? What are we missing?

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Permalink Reply by george mayer on May 25, 2009 at 11:27pm

Kirsten, that's a great point. There will be drugs probably forever, and also always students trying to figure out how to get them into schools. It's a really hard issue. Is there another solution other than strip searching perhaps? Call in the parents? Or maybe something else?

And Brett, I absolutely agree that prevention is a necessary thing, but it's very hard. Did you ever do DARE? I did. It was ridiculous. I'm not saying that your health teacher was bad, I'm just saying that prevention programs exist and are often ineffective.

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Permalink Reply by george mayer on May 26, 2009 at 8:49pm

I like the way Brett was taking this though, especially because my drug prevention program as such a joke. Could we brainstorm about what a quality and effective drug prevention program might look like? What seems to work? what seems to definitely not work?

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