PLN 13 :D

Today, an interesting article by the name of “ACLU decries school cellphone searches” caught my eye. It was located within the Denver Post blog.

The text describes a cell phone check performed by the Boulder Valley School District inflicted on its students. The whole fiasco initiated when a student from Monarch High School was allegedly accused of smoking cigarettes. The school obviously became concerned and gestured the accused to their office to perform a through inspection of his belongings. This was done in order to provide evidence to support the claim that the student actually smoked. Along with searching the student’s backpack and pockets, the office personnel also chose to review the student’s cell phone text messages. After finding the results of the phone check “incriminating”, the administration then began interrogating the student on the subject. Many other students who belonged to the same school faced similar circumstances. The instance caught the attention of the ACLU (American civil liberties union) which argued that the high school staff had no right to intervene in their student's personal information. "The educators at Monarch High School need some education themselves about the law and students' rights," Silverstein (American Civil Liberties Union legal director) said. "Students have legally protected rights of privacy, and the actions of Monarch administrators are violating those rights."

Although I agree with Silverstein, I still stand headstrong in my believe that the office attendants did the right thing. As with every institution, safety is the first and foremost concern amongst its staff. Preserving this safety may only become reality through inspections of certain accused students. The accused student posed a great threat to the unbiased student population of his school; if the accused was in reality a smoker, he could have potentially spread his ways to the innocent population of the school if not confronted. I don’t know nor will I ever know of any school which would welcome the idea of playing host to any majority of smoking students. The school board personnel do not act on emotion, but on law, it was not an issue of mistrust or judgment, it was for safety’s sake alone that searches were performed.

To me, I expect someone will try to offer me smoking and drugs in the future, but I would thank the school board for their actions if they followed Monarch’s example because this would better protect me from these harms. The unselfish nature of the school’s actions may have “scared” the accused and others into not commencing smoking and/or taking drugs. I know that Arapahoe is a very safe school, but searching text messages would not bother me because I would understand the actions of my school to be in my best interest.