Welcome back to school. I know most of you hate those words, but there might be a few of you out there that are looking forward to getting back. Hopefully you all enjoyed your summer and took advantage of your time off. I don't blog over the summer so this is sort of like my first day back in school as well. So, in keeping with the back to school theme, I have just the topic to discuss. It's a kind of welcome back gift for those juniors and seniors lucky enough to drive to school.
For those of you who drive to school and park on school grounds, it would behoove you to know what your rights are in regards to search and seizure laws concerning your vehicle as it pertains to school grounds. As previously discussed when I wrote to you about locker searches, most schools these days hand out some form of Student Handbook. This handbook is a very important legal document for schools. When it comes to the law, prior knowledge is a big factor. For example, let's say a jar of pickles falls on the floor of your local supermarket and someone slips and falls on it a few seconds later. There is no grounds for a lawsuit (I know some lawyers are out there disagreeing with me) because the supermarket did not have a chance to clean the mess up. Take the same scenario but tweak it a little. A jar of pickles falls and an employee notifies the manager. The manager calls for clean-up in aisle six, but the clean-up crew is on break. The mess sits there for a few minutes and eventually someone comes along and slips. Now there is a potential lawsuit because there was prior knowledge of this spill and the supermarket did not do its best to either clean the spill or close off the area until it could be cleaned up.
This handbook that you receive, and in many cases have to sign along with your parents, is the school giving you prior knowledge of its rules and regulations. You can try and claim ignorance, meaning you didn't read it, but we know this isn't going to fly. (Get into the habit of reading everything you put your signature on. That goes for the fine print as well) In this handbook should be a section dealing with what the school's expectations of you are for allowing you to park on school grounds. It may look something like this.
It is a privilege and not a right for Juniors and Seniors to use the High School's parking facilities. This privilege can be revoked at anytime at the administration's discretion. Reasons for revocation can be but are not limited to;
1)Reckless driving on school grounds
2)Speeding on school grounds
3)Leaving school grounds without permission
4)Disciplinary issues
5)Contraband found in vehicle while on school property
6)Insubordination
All student vehicles parked on school grounds are subject to search at the administration's discretion.
This last statement in bold print is the school's caveat emptor. They're basically telling you if you bring a car on school property you better not have anything in it that will get you in trouble. I agree with this statement and it makes sense for a school to let students know what their policy is. The question remains. Is the school entitled to search your car if you park it on their property, even if they warn you ahead of time in writing that they have the right to do so?
This question can be answered if we break it down into two parts. The first part is do they have the right to search your car? They have the right to ask to search your car. For those of you who are not mentally challenged you probably see where I'm going with this. The second part to this should be quite obvious. Do you have the right to say no? Yes you do, however there will be consequences to saying no. The most obvious is you're going to have your parking privileges removed. Then you're probably going to get in trouble for insubordination. Insubordination is a disciplinary term that most schools use because it is broad in scope. It usually will end up in a student being suspended. The obvious thing here is that you have to weigh your options. Most teens will let the administration search their cars because they have nothing to hide. If you do have something to hide ( you should never bring anything on school grounds that needs to be hidden) then you're going to have to decide what's more severe. Being suspended and having your parking privileges taken away, or school officials discovering something in your car that you can be arrested for.
School officials need reasonible suspicion to search you, your locker, backpack, purse, pocketbook and your car. The U.S. Supreme Court has said that a search is “reasonable,” if it meets two requirements. It must be justified at its inception. This means that “there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school." The second requirement is that the search be reasonably related in scope to the circumstances that justified the search in the first place, meaning the measures used to search must be “reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction." This standard of proof that school officials use is much less than a police officer needs to do the same thing. However, a school official can't force you to open your car and search it where a police officer can. Yes, you will be hit with an insubordination charge by your school, but you have to weigh your options.
The cases I have studied, which have been appealed to higher courts in regards to search and seizure on school gounds, all have been upheld because the students voluntarily opened their cars because of the school rule. The courts always rule that the futherance of educational goals outweighs the individuals rights on school gounds. The following links are news articles about search and seizure on school grounds. In each of these cases the students consented to the search based on school rules.
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/44890082.html
http://www.school-training.com/newsletter/articles/search-of-students-car.shtml
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/nj_school_officials_can_search.html
I will discuss police searchers, especially drug sweeps with canines at another time. Hope this was helpful and have a safe and productive school year.
