Calamity Jane
Reverend Blue Jeans
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2001
- Posts
- 18,421
CUT & PASTE
Principal, teacher removed from Pitcher Elementary while district investigates alleged strip search
By JOE ROBERTSON and DEANN SMITH
The Kansas City Star
The principal and a teacher have been removed from Pitcher Elementary School while the Kansas City School District investigates allegations that third-graders were subjected to an improper search, district spokesman Edwin Birch said today.
The principal is Jana Schwimmer. The teacher was not identified.
Parents and students at Pitcher met this morning with a state investigator and school district attorneys to discuss the alleged strip search over $5 of missing money.
"The district has to investigate these allegations," Birch said. "We wanted to reassure them (the parents and students) that we want to do the right thing."
The state also must investigate, he said, which is why an investigator with the Missouri Division of Family Services joined the meeting.
Parents have complained that children told them earlier this week that boys had to drop their pants to be searched by an adult male, while girls were searched by other girls.
District policy does not allow strip searches and specifies that any other search cannot be done in front of other students.
Superintendent Bernard Taylor Jr. hired Schwimmer as principal at Pitcher last summer. Taylor and district attorneys briefed school board members about the incident in a closed session Tuesday.
Taylor sent letters home to some Pitcher parents Tuesday, saying that investigators may ask to talk to their children to get eyewitness accounts of a "disturbing report that students...may have been subjected to an improper search of their persons."
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has no policy on strip searches and instead allows local school boards to set their own policies, said Kris Morrow, an attorney for the department.
"If a district is even thinking of doing a strip search, we tell them to be sure and contact their school district attorney," Morrow said. "Because of the invasive nature of the search, strip searches can be a litigation mine field."
/CUT & PASTE
Ok, the thought of my kids being strip searched at school is enough to make me want to kill someone. But strip searching them in front of other students? Over missing lunch money???
And how can the school district NOT have a policy on this? Doesn't it violate 4th Amendment rights? The ACLU thinks so.
What would you do if your 9 year old came home from school and told you that she/he'd been strip searched in front of 25 other students?
What should the school district do if the allegations are correct?
Principal, teacher removed from Pitcher Elementary while district investigates alleged strip search
By JOE ROBERTSON and DEANN SMITH
The Kansas City Star
The principal and a teacher have been removed from Pitcher Elementary School while the Kansas City School District investigates allegations that third-graders were subjected to an improper search, district spokesman Edwin Birch said today.
The principal is Jana Schwimmer. The teacher was not identified.
Parents and students at Pitcher met this morning with a state investigator and school district attorneys to discuss the alleged strip search over $5 of missing money.
"The district has to investigate these allegations," Birch said. "We wanted to reassure them (the parents and students) that we want to do the right thing."
The state also must investigate, he said, which is why an investigator with the Missouri Division of Family Services joined the meeting.
Parents have complained that children told them earlier this week that boys had to drop their pants to be searched by an adult male, while girls were searched by other girls.
District policy does not allow strip searches and specifies that any other search cannot be done in front of other students.
Superintendent Bernard Taylor Jr. hired Schwimmer as principal at Pitcher last summer. Taylor and district attorneys briefed school board members about the incident in a closed session Tuesday.
Taylor sent letters home to some Pitcher parents Tuesday, saying that investigators may ask to talk to their children to get eyewitness accounts of a "disturbing report that students...may have been subjected to an improper search of their persons."
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has no policy on strip searches and instead allows local school boards to set their own policies, said Kris Morrow, an attorney for the department.
"If a district is even thinking of doing a strip search, we tell them to be sure and contact their school district attorney," Morrow said. "Because of the invasive nature of the search, strip searches can be a litigation mine field."
/CUT & PASTE
Ok, the thought of my kids being strip searched at school is enough to make me want to kill someone. But strip searching them in front of other students? Over missing lunch money???
And how can the school district NOT have a policy on this? Doesn't it violate 4th Amendment rights? The ACLU thinks so.
What would you do if your 9 year old came home from school and told you that she/he'd been strip searched in front of 25 other students?
What should the school district do if the allegations are correct?
