Why Teachers Should Not Search Kids Lockers

The Essential Question surrounding this case is, “May school administrators search a student or their belongings absent of probable cause?”

In the case New Jersey v. T.L.O., the student’s purse was searched after the principal had reasonable suspicion that she had cigarettes in her purse since she was caught smoking in the bathroom. The court decision in this case concluded that teachers are acting as agents for the state and are therefore allowed to search if they have reasonable suspicion. Students do have the Fourth Amendment right as all people in America have. However, student’s expectation of privacy has to be balanced with the needs of the school to maintain the educational environment. Schools do not have to obtain a warrant to search, but must have reasonable suspicion in order to search a student’s person or property.

In conclusion, even though there are many different pros and cons about searching school lockers humans today need to search them if need when needed.Although school locker searches can be bad in some legal

Personally I think it is a violation of the law in some cases. Schools do have the permission to search the lockers though because of the fact that it is their property they’ve funded it but there has been some situations with faculty searching your pockets and backpacks or even making you take off your clothing. Now the pocket and backpack check is something that they can do when you enter the building but not at random times. They have to have probable cause which means they need a reason to search you meaning the person who is conducting the search or a witness visibly see you with something you’re not supposed to have, or smell a use of drugs or alcohol.

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

There is a serious sociological advantage that comes with the searching of school property. First, these searches will immediately improve the atmosphere of the school, turning it into a drug, alcohol, or weapon free zone. It’s a fact that students perform better in a safe environment and if said hazards are removed from school grounds, there will be a noticeable improvement among students. The removal of these hazards will also improve the community in which the school and students reside in. Say you live in a town like Fargo,

It cannot be disputed that schools often have to place the privacy of one student, below the overall need to secure the safety of a student body as a whole. If students know that their belongings can be searched, it will discourage them from committing illegal activities at school.

. In Pros and Cons of School Locker Searches, it states that, " Misplaced Focus: searching lockers can imply to students that they aren't trustworthy. It can ruin the school's attempt to build school community trust and respect." In Article 3 ( Pros and Cons of School Locker Searches- Synonym), it states, " School locker searches also consume valuable time for administrators, security guards, and teacher who conduct them. Student also lose their learning time because of this issue." In addition, Article 3 states, " Because students may keep personal items in their lockers, such as photographs and personal letters, even a search with the best intentions can appear to be a major breach of trust by teachers and administrators, causing a rift between the student body and faculty." Some people may argue that locker searches can keep children safe. It "protects them." But how can locker searches protect the children unless they think something's up. If the children act normal and they have a gun in their backpack, then how does this help keep them safe- if no one's suspicious of

Regardless of the possibility of students having illicit substances on campus, the 4th Amendment should apply to students because students could have embarrassing items in their bag. If a student was coming in from being off campus, they could have their bag searched by an adult in the school if they suspected they were carrying illegal items. However, if the student had personal items in their backpack and were embarrassed about them in any way, having a person dig through their bag to look for illicit substances that they would most likely not possess in the first place would cause the student mental strain and a possible loss of trust in the adult carrying out the search and others in the school that didn’t challenge the validity of the search. In the court case of Safford Unified School District, the administrators of Safford Middle School strip searched a thirteen year old girl. The administrators were informed that she was in the possession of prescription strength ibuprofen and had given some to another student. The school was not provided a specific time or location that this had occurred. They had no evidence besides the word of another student that she possessed the pills, and therefore the search was unreasonable. More importantly, there was no reason for the school authorities to strip search a thirteen year old girl and cause her and her mother emotional trauma, especially not for alleged non-specific possession of an amount of ibuprofen equivalent to two Advil

I believe that middle school students should have lockers. It could be difficult for them to carry all of their stuff. Their bookbags could be too heavy, which might hurt their backs. Lockers could make keeping up with school work much easier. It makes it easier for students to be organized too. Students would also be prepared for class more.

Ever since the first school shooting, a lot of people have changed their beliefs on this subject. I was in eighth grade when the shooting at Columbine High School took place. Before that shooting, I never would have considered something like that happening. Now, it is seventeen years later and school shootings almost seem like an everyday thing. That is sad, but it is true. This is why I believe a student should not have a high expectation of privacy while at school. The law used to be more lenient, but these circumstances have changed that. Right after Columbine, a lot of states had a zero tolerance law. According to the Center for Public Education site, this law said that if a student was caught with contraband they were given a strict punishment, no matter what the circumstance was. The laws have changed some over the last few years, and are not quite as strict as that. The schools still have to ensure that every student is safe, though. It is common for schools to have metal detectors or bring in dogs on a regular basis. Once they have a reason to suspect a student, they have the right to search their belongings. I believe this is well within their rights as administrators who are trying to protect the school as a whole. I realize that students may feel violated, I have been there. It was always an inconvenience to have to sit outside the hallways while the dogs searched each room. I never felt like it was wrong when they did find something though. So many students would bring large amounts of drugs, guns and knives to school. If it weren’t for the measures that the school took they would just be walking around with these items. I hope these laws never change, and my kids have the same protection that I did. I would hate to imagine my child going to school with guns and drugs within an arm’s reach. I believe the issue of student’s privacy is one that many people can agree with each other on.

Where as others may believe that this will make the school system more of a bureaucracy. Further more those would also argue that most of the time lockers are hardly involved in the keeping of contrabands. If students have contraband items they are more likely to keep it on them and therefore randomly searching lockers it not as important. The time and energy which would be spent searching lockers could be used in more efficient way.

Now addressing the complete disrespect and breach of privacy when it comes to school lockers. Lockers aren’t ever really safe, it’s true. If wanted/required a security guard can easily unlock your locker at any point in time during a school day. And you might be thinking: “Okay? So what, they’re just kids” well newsflash, kids have rights too. K-12, the upper echelons of the education system sometimes out right accuse these poor students of harboring drugs and other unlawful paraphernalia within their lockers, and takes upon themselves to undergo what they call “a locker search”, or in other words. “Breach of privacy example number 3”.

Some claim that they are the school property and if something is going on then they should be able to conduct a search, but the schools did give the students the lockers to keep there stuff safe, on the impretion that the schools can’t shereach them.So schools shouldn’t be allowed to conduct random searches of students privat items.

The primary advantage of locker searches is their effectiveness. Finding contraband material such as stolen property, drugs or weapons in a student's locker is an easy way to establish guilt and