At their meeting last week, Saucon Valley School Board members criticized a strip search clause that was included in a proposed revision of the district’s search policy; a clause that generated controversy when it parents learned of it last month.
Superintendent Dr. Monica McHale-Small was asked by board member Charles Bartolet why the policy proposal was submitted to the board with language that would–at least in theory–allow staff to strip search students without parental consent or police supervision.
She responded by explaining that the current search policy was recently submitted to the district’s solicitor for a general review after it was discovered that it requires the district to notify parents annually that drug dogs are used to conduct random searches of lockers and public spaces. There was a concern because the district hasn’t been doing this, she explained.
When solicitor Mark Fitzgerald of Fox & Rothschild LLP reviewed the policy–which was last updated in 2006–he found some “gaps” in it, McHale-Small said.
“Your policy needed a facelift,” Fitzgerald told the board, explaining that since it was last updated the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) has updated its recommended language for student search policies based on the U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Redding v. Safford Unified School District (2009).
“The school district does have the authority to conduct these types of searches,” Fitzgerald affirmed.
Just because the district has the authority to do so doesn’t mean it should, several board members indicated in their comments.
“I think this is a bridge too far,” said board member Bryan Eichfeld, who said the idea of faculty or staff strip searching students raised “potential violation of privacy and Fourth Amendment rights” in his mind.
The proposed policy change as written would require the district to notify its solicitor before strip searching a student, but by the time that has been done staff could already have township police at the school, Eichfeld said.
He said he’d heard a lot of feedback about the proposal from parents, and “most parents are absolutely abhorrent to the idea of a strip search.”
Board member Susan Baxter agreed.
“If I still had children in school, I would be out there in the audience. I would be extremely upset (about the proposed policy),” she said.
“I don’t want to put teachers in that position. I don’t want to put children in that position. They have to work together later,” she added. “I am not interested in any way, shape or form of having strip searches conducted by administrators or teachers.”
Eichfeld added that in a situation in which a student has a concealed weapon, the search process could potentially endanger a faculty or staff member.
“Who better to pull a weapon off of a student than a police officer?” he asked.
Only board member Sandra Miller expressed some support for the idea of strip searches.
“I am very torn,” she said. In a situation where a student has ingested something that’s potentially dangerous she said conducting an immediate strip search could be the most expedient means of identifying the substance.
After it became clear that there was little support from the board for keeping the existing proposed language regarding strip searches in the revised version of the policy, Fitzgerald said he would draft new language to specify that the responsibility for strip searches will be deferred to local police.
Some districts in the Lehigh Valley do disallow strip searches, including the Allentown and Salisbury school districts, Eichfeld said.
Fitzgerald recommended that the district have its new student search policy approved and in place by the start of the new school year in August.
