As with other constitutional rights, NYRA believes that this right applies equally to everyone, regardless of age. However, many court cases have allowed schools to conduct searches that would be illegal if students were not involved. And because there is very little protection for students` rights, school authorities have committed flagrant violations of the privacy, dignity and rights of young people, such as searching an entire classroom if an object is lost, conducting a patrol to search for insignificant sums of money, threatening suspension if they do not hand over their phone passwords. and students fumbling. We believe that all students retain their Fourth Amendment rights inside and outside the school. For example, if a student is accused of having aspirin, which is contrary to the school`s drug policy, it is reasonable for school staff to have the student with empty pockets and look inside a backpack. But if nothing is found, it`s not acceptable to ask you to pull out your underwear ribbon to look for aspirin. At the very least, the police must have “reasonable suspicion” to search you. And they may need more than that. Send us your questions and we`ll let our team find an answer. Remember that we are not really your lawyers and we do not represent you. We can certainly help you clarify some things and give you information, but if you need real legal help for your situation, you should find a lawyer in your area. And don`t worry, any information we collect is solely for our own research, and we won`t share or sell it to third parties.

At school, searches are often conducted by teachers, administrators, student resource officers or police officers. In some cases, courts have held that school officials conducting a search based on information provided by the School Resource Commissioner are acting as police officers and are therefore subject to the higher standard of probable cause, as in State of New Hampshire v. Heirtzler (Supreme Court of New Hampshire, 2000). When school police officers search students at the request of the school administration, they are sometimes authorized by law to search only on reasonable suspicion rather than obtaining a search warrant based on probable reason, as in Wisconsin v. Angelia D.B. (Wisconsin Supreme Court of Wisconsin, 1997). Anything that is illegal or prohibited by school policy, whether it is a gun, illegal drugs or alcohol, or a prohibited cell phone, can be confiscated and searched. Nevertheless, state laws may impose additional restrictions on searching. If your school does not allow you to start a student club, please contact us. We can help you get organized and start a campaign. Unfortunately, there is no exact definition. However, reasonable suspicion should be based on facts that are unique to you or you.

It cannot be based on rumor, intuition or curiosity. For example, a teacher cannot demand searching a bag that looks strange and bulging for drugs based solely on the appearance of the bag. In most cases, federal law allows locker searches because the lockers are considered school property and students should not expect everything they put in them to remain private. This applies to other school properties, such as offices. However, states and school districts may have policies that better protect items in student lockers, where the locker is considered the equivalent of a personal bag, but such cases are rare. These searches are not only an invasion of privacy, but are not particularly effective. Studies suggest that drug-sniffing dogs are prone to false positives that lead to unwarranted searches. As a method of detecting drugs, they can hardly be more accurate than a random draw. Drug sniffer dog programs are also expensive, costing the school district $12,000 to $36,000 a year — money needed elsewhere.

Despite these issues, some school districts continue to use drug detector dogs. In the world outside of schools, searches of personal property generally cannot be conducted unless law enforcement has a search warrant. To obtain a search warrant, police must satisfy a judge that they have a good reason to search a person`s home or personal belongings. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects individuals from improper search and seizure to protect their privacy in their homes and personal belongings. To constitute a “reasonable” search under the law, law enforcement agencies usually require a search warrant before conducting the search. If someone at your school tells you to leave the classroom while drug-sniffing dogs are searching, try bringing your belongings. School officials only need reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed before searching a student`s personal belongings. In the landmark case of New Jersey v. T.L.O.

(U.S. Supreme Court, 1985), the Court held that school administrators do not need to have a search warrant or probable reason before conducting a search, because students at school have a lower expectation of privacy. A patrol search is one of the most invasive searches at school and is often conducted illegally. In Safford Unified School District v. Redding (U.S. Supreme Court, 2009), an eighth-grader, Savana Redding, was raided by school officials because another student said she may have hidden ibuprofen in her underwear, in violation of school policies. Savana continued his school and NYRA joined an amicus curiae letter in his defense. The court noted that patrol searches are “categorically different” and must meet stricter requirements than other searches due to the deeper intrusion into the student`s privacy. For such a search to be authorized, it must be proven that dangerous or illegal objects are hidden in it. Suspicious patrol searches are almost always illegal, and schools can pay high severance packages for breaking the rules. Schools often try to force students to give school administrators passwords to their social media accounts.

A student successfully sued her school after being forced to log into her Facebook account in the principal`s office. In that case, S.S. v. Minnewaska Area School District (Minnesota District Court, 2012), the school had to pay damages and revise its social media privacy policy. On the other hand, items such as lockers and other school-owned property that your school provides to you, such as iPads or computers, are not subject to this “reasonable suspicion” requirement. Since these items belong to your school and you simply use them instead of owning them, the school has every right to search these items. So if you have nude photos of yourself, pictures of you drinking alcohol, or anything else you might be in trouble for, remove that information from the device! Don`t try to pretend that the school doesn`t have the power to search your device because you risk losing. There are far fewer restrictions on school-owned properties that are searched than on student property. Schools also seriously violated students` right to privacy by filming students without their knowledge as they changed in a locker room.

Since students have a reasonable expectation of privacy in locker rooms, such searches are considered illegal, as in Brannum v.