Family: Grass Valley School’s Random Drug Searches Violate Students’ Constitutional Rights
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GRASS VALLEY (CBS13) — A Grass Valley family says their daughter’s Constitutional rights were violated after a search dog was brought to her middle school for a random drug and weapons search.
District superintendent Eric Frederickson admits Lyman Gilmore Middle School has never had a drug problem at the school, but they wanted to be proactive—a measure many parents appreciate.
For each random search, students are told to leave their belongings in the classroom and exit the room while the dogs go to work.
That upset parent Eric Rose.
“They didn’t tell us about it,” he said. “We found out by our daughter dealing with it.”
He and his wife Shelly say when they found out that their daughter’s classroom in Grass Valley had been searched by a contraband dog, they were angry.
“I definitely think it’s wrong,” he said. “I think it’s a waste of funds.”
The district says it’s just a measure to keep the school safe.
“We’re really into providing a safe environment in our school, and this is just another way to validate that,” he said.
So where does the law fall on searches on a school campus?
Appellate court cases often side heavily with schools on the issues, saying that dogs can search school lockers and cars on campus since there is no expectation of privacy on the school campus.
However, having dogs sniff students is not allowed without reasonable suspicion, defense attorney Kevin Adamson says.
As for searches like the one at Lyman Gilmore where students are separated from their belongings before the search takes place, he says a court has yet to decide one way or the other.
As for Rose, he says his daughter will not participate in the search.
“Next time it happens, she’s going to pick her bag up and go to the office,” he said. And the principal says that’s enough to give him reasonable suspicion to search her person, we’ll just see what happens.”
The school says they have been doing the searches for years and the dogs have yet to find any drugs.
