School district attorneys help to develop searches and seizures policies. School districts should provide trainings at schools in order to make sure of what the staff should do or don’t when it comes to searches and seizures.

Searches conducted not only by law enforcement officers, but also by public school officials need to comply with The Fourth Amendment, which prohibits against unreasonable search and seizures, ensuring to protect students constitutional rights.

The Fourth Amendment protects students from unreasonable searches by public school officials on: school property school buses school events.

 Examine items or places that are not out in the open or exposed to public view.  Physically examining or patting down a student’s body or clothing, including the student’s pockets.  Opening and inspecting personal possessions such as purses, backpacks, bags, books, and closed containers.

 Handle or feeling item’s shape or other publicly exposed physical properties.  Using any extraordinary means to enlarge the view into closed or locked areas, containers, or possessions, so as to view items not in plain.  View and exposed to the public.  Drug testing through urinalysis.

 Observing an object after a student denies ownership, an object abandoned by a student or an object exposed to the public.  Peering into car windows, without opening the door or reaching into the vehicle to move or manipulate its contents.  Detecting anything exposed to the senses of sight, smell or hearing.

 School official interferes with a student’s freedom of movement or possessory interest in property. › Seizure of a person › Seizure of an object

 “The Court has held that school officials, unlike the police, do not need to obtain a warrant prior to conducting a search. Nor do they need probable cause to believe that a violation of the law has occurred.” 

 Searches of the Student’s Person  The principal or designee may search the person of a student if he/she has reasonable grounds to believe that the student is in possession of contraband. › Search with witness and other students and as privately as possible. One to three additional District employees of the same sex. › Notified of the search as soon as reasonably possible to parents or guardians. › No strip search of a student shall be carried out by any employee of the District.

 Any item that presents an immediate danger of physical harm would be seized.

 Students may be detained after school or at lunch time (if he/she rides a bus) for disciplinary reasons, usually no longer than 30 minutes.

 If a motor vehicle that it is operated by a student and is on school property would be searched when there is reasonable grounds for such a search.  A law enforcement officer may search a motor vehicle on school premises subject to the provisions of the policy on student interrogations, searches and arrests.

 Look at the student handbook, consult with the Executive Director of Elementary Schools. Interrogate student with witness, inform parents and document.  Student in a possession of a gun.

“A public school violated the privacy rights of a teenage girl who had to disrobe on suspicion she had ibuprofen pills, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2009 in its first decision on student strip searches. By an 8-1 vote, the justices upheld a ruling that the school and its officials violated the U.S. constitutional right that protects against unreasonable search and seizure. This video tells the story of the Savana Redding case before her case was heard at the Supreme Court. When Savana was 13 years old, she was strip-searched for allegedly possessing prescription-strength ibuprofen. School officials violated Savana's rights and called into question basic constitutional protections for all students in schools across America.”