Locker Searches

Wonjung Hwang Mr. Chonko English 10 Period 3 19 November 2012 Locker Searches We’ve all seen enough crime shows to know what to do if the police knock on your door and demand to search your property: stand, look indignant and demand to see their warrant. After all, it’s your property, and unless you give permission or a judge orders the search, you should have control over what you have, right? Yes—provided you’re not a student. If you’re in a school environment, teachers and administrators can search without either permission or a warrant.

School should search their students’ lockers because school is responsible for their students, no privacy concerns, and to protect students. Every school is responsible for the students and the safety of them. For their safety, schools have the right to search the students’ lockers if they are suspicious about having inappropriate things such as drugs, alcohols, and weapons in their lockers. By searching the lockers, they make sure all the students are in safe environment around the school.

Diane Cooper, the president of the East Orange Board of Education says “Students have to feel that they are protected from unauthorized or unprovoked harassment. ” It is the schools responsibility to keep the school safe and clean, and to keep the students protected. There is no privacy concerns while locker searching. Students are merely allowed to use lockers as they keep sports equipment, library books, textbooks, and so on. Moreover, the books and equipments which stay in lockers are the property of schools. Lockers are also originally schools’ property as well and they can be taken back without notice.

If the students know that they are going to be in trouble for certain thing, they should not even bring it to school. In addition, being in an agreement for the locker searches is a part of being in a school community where you have to accept the schools’ rules and responsibilities. Students must trust teachers and police officers to perform locker searches and should believe that they are trying to protect students from drugs and weapons, not invading the privacy. According to a new study by the National Center for Education Statistics, about 35 percent of American high school students are carrying or have carried weapons on school property.

This is the result of not paying enough attention to the students and not trying to protect them from any weapons. In the article “State Urges Schools to Begin Random Searches of Students’ Lockers” by New York Times, the State Attorney General, Peter G. Verniero says “If you’ve got reasonable suspicion for conducting a search, by all means you should conduct a search, because the bottom line is we want to prevent a tragedy from happening in the first place. ” If students carry weapons are keep them in their lockers, the accidents always can happen.

By searching lockers, we can stop these disasters from happening. Locker searches are necessary due to the schools’ responsibility of their students, no privacy concerns, and protection of the students. The school should keep the school clean and safe for the students and pay attention to the students. There are no privacy concerns because the lockers are schools’ belongings, and it is part of being a school community to accept school policies. By searching lockers, the school also can protect students from being addicted to drugs or avoid a tragedy from happening.