When Searching Students Belongings Should Be Allowed In Schools

Searching students’ belongings should only be done if there is reasonable evidence that a student is breaking the rules set by the school, or has substances or weapons not allowed by the school. Over the years, administrators and teachers have been given more freedom to search student belonging without violating their 4th Amendment rights. The reason behind these searches is to protect the safety of others including the person we are searching. In this scenario, the decision of the teacher to search belongings would not be enough of a probable cause, unless the teacher has enough evidence that the scissors can be used as a weapon or to commit harm to themselves. From the sound of it, the scissors are not the ones we let the students use, but those of a teacher, which are a lot stronger and can actually cause some type of harm. Now, if the teacher believes that the scissors are taken to commit harm to others or themselves, I would say the teacher has enough evidence to search the student belongings, which includes their cubbies and backpacks. First, the teacher needs to let the students know she will performing a search and the reason behind the search. I would also advice the teacher to have another school personnel present during the search.
Again, the teacher needs to have probable cause before searching students’ …show more content…
I would not want for the teacher to search all students and find out the scissors were somewhere in the classrooms. Also, knowing how students can be, a student might confess to the teacher what happened to the scissors if they are not around other students. This scenario shows that although teachers have more freedom to search student belongings without violating their 4th Amendment, we should not take advantage of that. We should only perform searches if we believe it is necessary in order for the safety of the