GA- Never strip search

4-23-2009 Georgia:

We don’t appear to be as serious about sex offenders as we like to claim we are. If we were, we’d find a way to outlaw strip searching in schools.

Regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court justices find regarding the Arizona case in which a 13-year-old girl suspected of drug possession was strip-searched, I am opposed to teachers and school administrators strip-searching students.

Teachers are trained to teach. If they suspect a certain student of drug possession or some other unlawful act, law enforcement should be called.

If all parties are doing what they have been trained to do, lines are less likely to become blurred.

There can be a seamless move from keeping the school safe for students to the Gestapo behavior of a frustrated teacher determined not to be outdone by some smart-aleck student. And lurking in there perhaps more often than we’d like to think is the teacher or administrator who has personal reasons for wanting to witness or participate in the strip searching of a child or adolescent.

A multitude of sins are committed against students by those who tell us they are trying to protect the students.

In 2002, an assistant principal at a San Diego, Calif., high school lifted girls’ skirts — in front of male students and other adults — to see whether they were wearing thong panties to a dance. (Ultimately demoted) Thong wearers were denied entry and told to go home and change, news services reported.

The assistant principal said she was concerned the combination of revealing clothing and suggestive dancing could lead to sexual assaults.

As it turned out, the assistant principal assaulted many of the girls before the boys had the chance.

Then there was the alleged strip-search of some of a class of seventh-graders at Russell County Middle School in 2004, when a teacher said about $12 was missing from her makeup bag.

The principal, assistant principal and a counselor allegedly took it upon themselves to conduct strip searches after the money was not found during searches of students’ pockets and purses. The students sued and reached a settlement in which the school system and the other plaintiffs denied the allegations, but agreed to pay $190,000.

The suit claims that the students were taken to the restrooms, where the searches took place. A female administrator accompanied the girls while the school’s principal accompanied the boys. In the restrooms, the students were asked to remove their shirts and drop their pants, according to the lawsuit. In some cases, they were told to move their underwear so that they were partially exposed, the suit states.

That would be a dehumanizing experiences. Stripping down to underwear; removing underwear or moving it to the side to reveal private body parts is inexcusable and should be unlawful — at least under the circumstances that seem to make the headlines.

It is never open season on students who have broken the law or are in violation of some school code. ..News Source.. by Kaffie Sledge