School Sweep Ignores Rights

[Jim Finnel]

As parents, we share the Canton school administration's goal of keeping students away from drugs and drugs off school property, but we vehemently disagree with the approach used at Canton High School, [June 19, Page B1, "The School Drug Sweep"] in which students were held in classrooms while police and dogs searched the school and grounds in a dragnet-type sweep.

In effect, it casts the whole student body as guilty until proven innocent. It not only interrupts but greatly disturbs the calm and positive atmosphere required for learning, humiliates and frightens innocent students and desensitizes them to the seriousness of lockdowns.

The search was not initiated because of any individualized suspicions but apparently was instead meant to alarm the entire student body. This intrudes upon the rights of individual students whose possessions are searched for no reasonable cause and creates a police-state atmosphere in what is, if left alone, a peaceful, productive, safe and exemplary public school.

According to studies we have seen, drug searches do not even accomplish the goal of preventing teens who want to use drugs from doing so, but merely make them more wily at how to go about it.

This sweeping approach steamrolls the rights of an entire school population, disrupts learning, causes innocent students a profound sense of having been violated, and fosters an antagonistic and distrustful attitude toward the administration. Is the one marijuana stem found in the parking lot worth those costs?

This is a well-intentioned but misguided policy that merely creates the illusion that the administration is keeping our children safe.

We have always been thrilled with Canton's schools, and aside from this particular policy, remain so. Administrators should investigate students they suspect of breaking laws, but should not drag the entire student body through another unnecessary, painful experience like this.


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Source: Hartford Courant
Copyright: 2008 Hartford Courant
Contact: Contact Us -- Courant.com
Website: School Sweep Ignores Rights -- Courant.com

 

[zolar]

yo canton officals your're slipping up i hear there's a pregnant 15 yearold in the district


shouldn't you inspect the girls and issue chastity belts before you statistics look bad......

 

[Jimbo]

Well, if there has to be a sunny side effect of this type of flagrant disrespect of privacy.
just think about this one for a minute...these kids are future voters here, and when they get a first hand look at how hard core and uncalled for this drug war really is, hopefully when they grow up, they will remember just how mistreated they were as kids and vote to eradicate any form of government that would condone any form of drug war fear tactics...These idiots are only instilling in the minds of future voters just how much this drug war has gotten out of control...fear and distrust of law enforcement is no way to win hearts and minds of kids!
All they are doing is making kids hate cops even more. "Scared straight tactics" don't work on kids who have really done nothing wrong in the first place...these ass holes need to be scared for their jobs, because even the kids have had enough! They need to leave the kids out of this shit!

 

[Carrie8300]

can a parent refuse to let a kid be drug tested? seems like the kind of thing that they would need permission for. I mean if I needed a parent to sign for me to watch a video on puberty...I would figure that they couldnt just take a drug test without a parents consent.

 

[Jim Finnel]

^ good point

 

[Cherma]

What a shame, and a waste of Tax dollars many US citizens are paying for. Let alone the Nazi SS like tactics being empowered to frighten the students into a "Fear Us" all mode for the future. If this is their way of educating the children, I would like to see the results of what the children think of this & them.

 

[Jim Finnel]

'Them' are Us.

we are the people and we allowed this sort of thing to happen. i'm pissed off not just about this but about almost every aspect of the governments intrusion into my life. but honestly i haven't done much. have i been out in the streets protesting? not often. have i written letters to the editor? once. have i let my representatives know how angry i am or my views on what needs to be changed? not often. to tell the truth i'm a bit ashamed of myself. sure i could find some excuses for my lack of action but i'd be decieving myself.

 

[Jimbo]

Well Jim, at least you recognize that you haven't done enough, and only you can change that...It's never too late to take action bro.
As articulate as you are, I figure writing letters would be your forte...you are very well informed and are a shoe in for educating people.
Generally, people (even non smokers) are just as sick of this kind of crap as we are, they just need to keep fresh in their minds that if we all stick together, we can end needless oppression in this country.
It doesn't take much persuasion to turn someone on to the truth.

That is a very good question Carrie8300!
I will be contacting my lawyer if my son ever gets made to take a piss test.
I know, that you have to sign for consent before any employer can send you for a piss test, so, what if I tell my son to never sign anything without first letting me read it, and then tell them to stick their permission to drug test him up their ass...then what? dose he get kicked out of school?
I would think they would have no legal right to make a minor take a piss test, but I'm not sure what the law says about it.

I wonder if Boss would know? He seems to be good at these sort of questions.

 

[BlackThumb]

^Hey GanjaG,
Do they make you sign something or take a doc home for parental signature, or just hand you a bottle and watch you tinkle in it?
What a sad state of affairs they have degraded this system to! Now youngsters as casualties of their war for doing nothing more than showing up for class. Outrageous.

 

[Jimbo]

Its funny how everyone thinks this is new or just happens at this particular school. Ever since 8th grade I have went thru this same exact thing at school randomly up to 3 times a year. Im not saying its exceptable but just letting you all know its much more common then one might think

Yea...they've been doing this for years here too, although a little after my time THANK GOD!
I have a young'en not too far from the age to start school, and they had better just leave him the fork alone! They haven't seen an irate parent yet!
Big daddy Jimbo don't play that shit!

 

[weedyMcBong]

^Hey GanjaG,
Do they make you sign something or take a doc home for parental signature, or just hand you a bottle and watch you tinkle in it?
What a sad state of affairs they have degraded this system to! Now youngsters as casualties of their war for doing nothing more than showing up for class. Outrageous.

When I was in school, you had to have a slip signed by parents, and you had to sign it. It was and still is (my mother teaches at a school in our district) necessary to have it signed if you wanted to do anything extracurricular or if you wanted a parking permit to drive to school.

 

[FreakNature]

Is this in the Treasure Valley bro? I've heard that area is rather conservative.

 

[Jimbo]

Like I said before, these are our future voters we're talking about here...kids that will remember their treatment back in school, when they are adults.
So I would think, sooner or later, people will get so tired of being treated like criminals for no reason.
Thats why it's imperative that we drive our message home!

 

[RooRman]

You think your rights mean much when you attend a public school which is property of the state and therefore that states government?

In the distant past, I was told by my former high-school principal that probable cause was not necessary in order for a teacher or faculty member to conduct a search of a student. Only "reasonable suspicion" is required to effect a search for drugs, weapons or other contraband. "Reasonable suspicion" my friends is what we call a legal gray-area in the respect that it can be stretched and perverted in an attempt to justify whatever blatent violation of your basic human rights they see fit to commit next.

Teachers and faculty members of public schools are NOT sworn police officers in any way shape or form. However, this seems to allow them to suffer the disillusion that they are in this respect "above the law" when overseeing students attending the school in which they work. Police must abide by the law carefully and acquire a search warrant before conducting a search. Violation of proper search protocol can result in the case being thrown out of court. Sadly it seems if you happen to be a student attending a public school, you are not even afforded these basic legal rights. In this case, police were used outrightly no doubt by request of the school. The result was students being stripped of their rights entirely with no legal backing whatsoever. Of course this is what happens when you enter a government building. Welcome to the American public school... check your rights at the door.

I have always said these illegal searchs conducted without consent are an outright abuse of power and clear violation of the law. However, when the victims are minors not one of them can stand up and fight an unjust system without the adults of said minors wanting to see the system change themselves. You have the RIGHT to refuse consent to be searched by anyone other then the officer of the law acting in his/her official capacity and conducting the search under the proper parameters dictated by the law.

Furthermore, believe it or not truancy (failure to attended school on a regular basis) in most school districts is an arrestable and/or punishable offense for students under the age of sixteen. Therefore, you are all but forced to make regular attendance at a place where your Constitutional rights essentially mean nothing. Think about that one.

 

[Jimbo]

Ok...you make a very strong point here my friend.
I tell you what I will do when my kid gets in school.
I will have my lawyer draw up a legal paper that informs them of his rights of search and seizure of his person or his personal property that will require them to have myself and my lawyer present for any such searches and I will also have a denial of drug testing permission for him to keep with him at all times, so that he can just hand it to them if they try to throw that kind of power around at him...I will not stand for it.
I am way too informed to sit back and let them intimidate my son's innocents with scare tactics.
I will sue the fork out of them if they fail to comply with me about this...they will not search his person or car without me and my lawyer there...under any circumstances and my son will have my permission to leave school if they try that crap...then I will go back up their with him and inform them of his rights in person.
Even cops have to respect your rights for a lawyer to be present for any searches to be conducted...and the last I checked, teachers and school staff were not law enforcement agents...so my answer for them will be..."NO, YOU MAY NOT!!!"

 

[RooRman]

Exactly. But until more parents like you will step up and do everything that is necessary to protect the most basic Constitutional rights of their children, the rights of minors attending public schools will continue to be trounced on.

The problem is most parents see the school's approach as part of the solution to keep kids off drugs, when they are really at the root of a much bigger problem... the absolute destruction of the rights every American, be they young or old, holds as self-evident and inalienable.

 

[Jimbo]

Yep...most parents are just conformist who just go along with everything their government tells them to do....as I said in another post;
"People are just sheep, fallowing a blind Shepard down a path of destruction"
These kind of people just go along letting other people raise their kids, decide what they should eat, what prescription drugs to take, what movies to watch...etc...etc...

Thats precisely why I do what I do...and that is re-educate people to the truth.
I refuse to take everything at face value...I find out for my self...It's my life, and I refuse to be saved from my self by a world full of soccer moms!!! PERIOD!!!

I will teach my son to be the same way if at all humanly possible! We are free thinkers, and should all take charge of our own lives!!!

 

[BlackThumb]

You know your right Roo, been so long since I was in school it didn't pop back until your principle story. If your guy was grey-area, mine was plumb on down in black. His line was more like, "Its not your locker, its mine and I'm just loaning it to you. I will open it whenever I want to". This of course is after they cut the lock off, and then require you to get another.

Same on truancy, I was skipping a week at harvest time, (big deal in wheat belt), and my grand-dad didn't have a problem with it so just was not getting onto bus. Saw it pull in, and then leave the first 3 mornings from the fields, but was not calling anyone or anything. That fourth evening a Truant Officer caught me dragging my beat butt in that night. You know what the punishment was..a weeks suspension! WtF, you want in or out. I got no problem earning some pocket change rather than sleeping through your home rooms. Idiots at work for our own good, yea right.

 

[Jimbo]

If I was your grand dad, I would have run him off my land with a shotgun!

 

[FreakNature]

You know what the punishment was..a weeks suspension! WtF, you want in or out.

Ludicrous. I'd like to see kids taught at home through daily life (hanging out w/ mom and / or dad, and their other family and friends) and when they are old enough to appreciate a formal education and have some experience with life that will make that education relevant, go on to study in a more formal environment what is important to them. Then they probably wouldn't need lockers or principals.