- by Jack Ryan
Legal & Liability Risk Management Institute

  The search here was part of a uniform security policy which was followed every day and applied to every student.  The policy required students to “pass through a metal detector, be patted down, empty their pockets onto a tray, remove their shoes, and place those shoes on a table for inspection.” 

  Students are placed in the Alternative Learning Center following disciplinary problems in mainstream schools.  Prior to being admitted to the Center, the students and parents attend an orientation in which the rules and regulations, including the search policy, are discussed.
  On May 2, 2002, O.E. followed the protocol of the search policy while entering the school.  Officer Val Barnes, a seven year veteran of the school district police, noticed a tissue inside O.E.’s shoe.  An examination of the tissue revealed the marijuana.  Following his arrest, O.E. sought to have the marijuana suppressed as the result of an unreasonable search.  The trial court refused and this appeal resulted.

  The appellate court recognized that the search in this case was an administrative search and not a search supported by individualized suspicion.  “An administrative search is conducted as part of a general regulatory scheme in furtherance of an administrative purpose, rather than as part of a criminal investigation to secure evidence of a crime.”  Here, the administrative purpose of the search scheme was school security in a school where students had already shown a propensity for disciplinary problems.

  In analyzing this type of search, the court balances the level of intrusion on the student against the government’s interest in the administrative purpose, in this case school security. 

  In weighing the intrusion, the court noted that parents and students had been notified of the policy and every student underwent a search every day.  The court pointed out that students have a diminished expectation of privacy in the school setting.

  In concluding that the search here, and the policy in general, was reasonable  the court determined that the search was minimally intrusive and was supported by a uniform procedure that safeguarded against an abuse of discretion on the part of school officials in making their determinations on which student would be searched.

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