Searching Savana
When I was in Elementary School (40 years ago) my Fifth Grade teacher had a singular dislike for myself and my parents. I don't know why and looking back on it I still think she had a screw or 10 loose. She was one of those battle-axes who hated kids, hated her job and found one or two kids every year to crap all over. That year - myself and a boy named Jim Gillespie were it.
This woman, an adult woman - purposely set me up (a 10 year old no less) to be taunted by my classmates and even left me at a school outing to wander 2 miles back to school myself... with no remorse. She stole things from my desk, hid them and watched as I dissolved in tears searching for them. She wanted so badly to give me bad grades but I was an honor student. Anything to break my spirit... what little I had at age 11.
I have PCOS and one of the signs of that is precocious (early) puberty. Mine hit hard when I was 9. I had full breasts and pubic hair by 10. A couple of my classmates told this to the teacher... who marched me down to the nurse and called me a liar. She and the nurse DEMANDED I strip in front of them. STRIP.
Afterwards they called my mother and wanted to know what was wrong with me! If that happened today I'd have had a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the school district.
I feel for this girl below. I know what she went through.
The school should be ashamed of itself.
by Pat Racimora
Middle School was the pits.
The only kids who weren’t self-conscious in the extreme about their evolving bodies and appearance were those few precocious jocks destined for high school football glory. To minimize exposure of the shiny wire braces on his teeth, one of my friends refused to speak unless absolutely necessary. Another tried to fake mononucleosis (the teenage diagnosis du jour) to buy time so that a bad haircut could grow out.
So it is difficult to imagine how 13 year old Savana Redding felt while being forced to expose her breasts and pelvic area to school officials. There was perhaps a reasonable suspicion that Redding could be in possession of a couple of Advil and possibly an Aleve because school personnel were tipped off by another student. Yet, was this breech of the rules sufficient to warrant what amounted to a strip search?
Even though Savana was also suspected of bringing other contraband to school, by an 8 to 1 majority the Supreme Court of the United States concluded that her rights had been violated and that the suspected breach failed to rise to the level of danger that would justify that degree of bodily invasion.
Oh, by the way, no pills were found in her backpack or on her person.
The case itself is somewhat complex, and good overviews appear
here and here. But the question remains as to what rights schools have when they receive tips from other students about threats that could endanger other students and school personnel.
Columbine and similar tragedies have put schools on alert. Students are actively encouraged to report any potential problems, and these reports are taken seriously. Yet there appears to be no bright line to demarcate exactly when extreme measures can and should be taken. Perhaps for that reason the Court did not impose any penalties on the personnel at Savana’s school. Yet, a quest to search for a couple of Advil’s by invading the body of a teenage girl, even though done by a female nurse and secretary, crosses way over some line.
What do you think?
SOURCE
This woman, an adult woman - purposely set me up (a 10 year old no less) to be taunted by my classmates and even left me at a school outing to wander 2 miles back to school myself... with no remorse. She stole things from my desk, hid them and watched as I dissolved in tears searching for them. She wanted so badly to give me bad grades but I was an honor student. Anything to break my spirit... what little I had at age 11.
I have PCOS and one of the signs of that is precocious (early) puberty. Mine hit hard when I was 9. I had full breasts and pubic hair by 10. A couple of my classmates told this to the teacher... who marched me down to the nurse and called me a liar. She and the nurse DEMANDED I strip in front of them. STRIP.
Afterwards they called my mother and wanted to know what was wrong with me! If that happened today I'd have had a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the school district.
I feel for this girl below. I know what she went through.
The school should be ashamed of itself.
by Pat Racimora
Middle School was the pits.
The only kids who weren’t self-conscious in the extreme about their evolving bodies and appearance were those few precocious jocks destined for high school football glory. To minimize exposure of the shiny wire braces on his teeth, one of my friends refused to speak unless absolutely necessary. Another tried to fake mononucleosis (the teenage diagnosis du jour) to buy time so that a bad haircut could grow out.
So it is difficult to imagine how 13 year old Savana Redding felt while being forced to expose her breasts and pelvic area to school officials. There was perhaps a reasonable suspicion that Redding could be in possession of a couple of Advil and possibly an Aleve because school personnel were tipped off by another student. Yet, was this breech of the rules sufficient to warrant what amounted to a strip search?
Even though Savana was also suspected of bringing other contraband to school, by an 8 to 1 majority the Supreme Court of the United States concluded that her rights had been violated and that the suspected breach failed to rise to the level of danger that would justify that degree of bodily invasion.
Oh, by the way, no pills were found in her backpack or on her person.
The case itself is somewhat complex, and good overviews appear
here and here. But the question remains as to what rights schools have when they receive tips from other students about threats that could endanger other students and school personnel.
Columbine and similar tragedies have put schools on alert. Students are actively encouraged to report any potential problems, and these reports are taken seriously. Yet there appears to be no bright line to demarcate exactly when extreme measures can and should be taken. Perhaps for that reason the Court did not impose any penalties on the personnel at Savana’s school. Yet, a quest to search for a couple of Advil’s by invading the body of a teenage girl, even though done by a female nurse and secretary, crosses way over some line.
What do you think?
SOURCE
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