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High School Students Should Not Be Granted Greater Privacy On School Property

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Riley Heerbrandt and Cade Davidson
Ms. Sullivan
English 3
March 3, 2016
Debate Paper
High School Students Should Not be Granted Greater Privacy Rights on School Property
Safety is, ”the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk, or injury” (“Dictionary”, n.d.). That is what locker searches provide for schools. With the early case of New Jersey v. T.L.O, a teacher caught a 14 year old girl smoking a cigarette in the bathroom. This led the teacher to send the girl to the principal in which the assistant principal decided to check her bag and locker for more cigarettes or other contraband. The assistant principal found marijuana and a list of people that owed the girl money. The teen took the school to court for …show more content…

On account of lockers being the school’s property it is legal for them to search them at any time under the right circumstances.
With the use of proper search and seizure guidelines, schools are allowed to search students lockers without a warrant. Lockers and backpacks are subject to search with reasonable suspicion. To search a locker, a school staff member or police officer would have to have reasonable suspicion, probable cause, and student consent in some cases (Ehlenberger). For reasonable suspicion to occur, “ the search would be justified at its inception, meaning that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will reveal evidence that the student has violated or is violating the law or school rules, and the search is reasonably related in scope to the circumstances that justified the search, meaning that the measures used to conduct the search are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and that the search is not excessively intrusive in light of the student 's age and sex and the nature of the offense” (Ehlenberger). Probable cause to search is when” "known facts and circumstances are sufficient to warrant a man of reasonable prudence in the belief that contraband will be found" (Ornelas v. United States, 1996, at 696)”

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