Administrators for a Safer School

        With rising crime and violence in our schools, there is a hard felt need among school administrators to quickly find ways to combat this troublesome issue with tough programs which usually entail harsh disciplinary actions. As a Westwood administrator, I, as well as my colleagues, have been faced with the daunting task of ensuring the mental and physical well being of our students. As a result of this challenge our principal has asked the Council to approve measures that include searches of the students’ belongings, the implementation of mandatory wearing of student and staff ID badges, and metal detectors at all entrances of the school building. After analyzing Principal Jensen’s measures, I have discovered other effective measures that could better serve our school.

        Would it be against the Fourth Amendment to adopt Principal Jensen’s measure to search a student’s car or book bag every morning? According to a 1999 school reference guide available at (http://www.keepschoolssafe.org) published by National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), “A search would be justified at its inception when the school official contemplating the search has reasonable grounds for suspecting that the intended search will reveal evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school.” It appears that it would be unconstitutional to do a morning-to-morning search of all the students’ private property without reasonable grounds that the student is guilty of wrongdoing. Another valuable point that was made by NAAG was that minors do not obviously have the same rights as full-grown adults: For instance, the right to bare arms, the right to purchase alcohol, and for minors under the age of 18, the right to vote. All of the above limits a minor’s rights to some extent. So in essence, minors do not have the same rights as adults. This same sort of criteria is the basis that enables school officials to search a student’s property without infringing upon the Fourth Amendment.

        Principal Jensen proposes conducting searches on all cars parked on school property, as well as searches on all the students’ book bags, issuing student identification badges and installing metal detectors at all the school entrances. How much will it cost the city of Winterhaven to implement this proposal? To know exactly how much it would cost, we would have to know how much extra personnel it would take to effectively search all of the students’ bags and all automobiles parked on campus as well as operate a metal detector or multiple metal detectors. The Internet site (http://www.securitymanagement.com) provides detailed information about current wages for unarmed school security officers’, which purports an average income of $14,746, to $21,392. We can only estimate how many guards would be needed to effectively implement Jensen’s proposal, although I think it would be safe to say that two to four guards would be necessary, which would cost from $29,492 to $85,568, per school year. In addition, we would need information on the cost of identification badges for all 955 Westwood students, plus staff members. A figure was attained from Time Solutions, Inc., (http://www.digital-id-badges.com) a company that produces identification badges for a vast array of customers including public schools. Their quote to supply students & staff with an ID was an astonishing $2600, which breaks down to $2.60 per ID. Surprisingly, metal detectors are not as expensive as some might think depending on what type is purchased. Discount Detector Sales of Crawfordsville, IN, (http://discountdetector.com) sells metal detectors used by security personnel and law enforcement agents. Prices range from $159.96 to $183.96 for a Garrett hand held portable detector, and $3,495 to 4,495, for a Magnascanner stationary walk through detector. Principal Jensen’s proposal calls for stationary type detectors to be installed at more than one school entrance, which would cost around $6,990 to 8,990, for at least two metal detectors. With these figures in hand, we can estimate that Jensen’s proposal will cost taxpayers from $39,082 to $97,150, to successfully implement.

        Principal Jensen suggests mandatory searches of the all the students’ book bags, along with all automobiles in order to keep drugs and weapons off school property. It is self-explanatory why Jensen would want to keep weapons off school grounds to avoid violence and keep students safe, but what do drugs and alcohol have to do with safety and violence? Studies available from the Internet site (http://salt.claretianpubs.org) concluded that alcohol & drugs increases aggressive behavior and violence in humans. It is easy to see why drugs and alcohol have no place in the school.

        How effective would a mandatory search of the all the students’ book bags, along with all automobiles on campus be? It is interesting to note that Principal Jensen and his administration confiscated only 44 articles of contraband from among 955 students, during his big crack down. That’s roughly 4.61% of Westwood students that were violating school policy. With such a small number of students violating school policy, I do not see how mandatory searches could be effective; further more, consideration on the part of the students should be scrutinized before searches of this magnitude are carried out.

        Consider the psychological effect on an adolescent teen that risks the discovery of personal items during a search: for instance, personal hygiene, contraceptives, personal notes from friends, or fragments of love poems. I talked with Valerie Gibler, a psychology student at the University of Idaho; she stated that frequent searches of the students’ belongings could make them feel like criminals, which can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, increasing the chances that they will actually become criminals later in life. A careful amount of consideration and common sense on the part of the school official needs to be set in place to avoid such an invasion of privacy.

        I recommend a less intrusive approach. The use of drug-detection canines may be a better choice. The dogs could come into the school on occasion and search for drugs throughout the school. A 1994 national survey conducted by the National School Boards Association (NSBA) showed that 24% of schools use drug-detection canines (Sautter, 191). But NAAG says that drug canines may fail to uncover drugs that are secreted in lockers, and better practice would be to use the canines in conjunction with random drug testing (http://www.keepschoolssafe.org).

        Jensen’s proposal also includes the implementation of metal detectors at all school entrances to ensure that weapons are not brought onto campus. How effective could metal detectors be? A statement by the Federal Centers for Disease Control (FCDC) and Prevention concluded that metal detectors “have no apparent effect on the number of injuries, deaths, or threats of violence”, which is a tough statement considering that more than 45% of urban schools use metal detectors (Sautter, 191). After seeing this evidence, it is unclear to me about the effectiveness of metal detectors. However, it seems perfectly reasonable that metal detectors would discourage students from bringing weapons into the school. I recommend implementing one portable metal detector instead of Jensen’s proposal of installing stationary type detectors at all school entrances. It would be more reasonable to do random spot searches with a portable detector that could be used anywhere on school grounds, not to mention other school activities and functions. Furthermore, portable detectors are not nearly as costly as the big stationary type detectors.

        Principal Jensen further suggested in his proposal that all students, staff, and faculty be forced to wear photo identification badges. The effectiveness of photo ID was made clear to me after an interview with Abe Gomez, a former student at Othello High School in Washington state, which has had the photo ID policy. Abe told me that there was an incident where an unknown individual was spotted in the school building without a school ID. He was immediately escorted off the school grounds. I think the photo ID would be a good supplement to school safety, but can’t recommend implementing them after discovering how much it would cost.

        After carefully researching this issue, it is clear to me that greater emphasis should be placed on the personalization of students to stop violence before it happens, because it seems as though schools are beating around the bush by implanting costly measures that do not address the issue that there is a bigger underlying problem with students. Surely there has to be a reason why there is so much anger and hostility in schools today. Child welfare experts have warned for years that latchkey homes, child abuse, domestic violence, and family breakups may increase real-world violence (Sautter,187). Recent studies from the American Psychological Association (APA), concludes that the “breakdown of family processes and relationships” contributes to “the development of antisocial behaviors, including violence.” (Sautter, 189) Further studies by the APA concluded that positive interaction by parents and other adults can lessen the risk of violent behavior among adolescents (Sautter, 190). These studies paint a harsh picture that the lack of parental and adult interaction may be a primary cause of violence in schools today.

        After reading Rebecca Martin Shore’s essay “Personalization”, I was impressed by a program entitled the adopt-a-kid program that was a huge success at Huntington Beach High School in California. The program targeted the top ten students who seemed to need extra attention. These students were then matched with adult volunteers that met with them before school, after school, over lunch, or when appropriate. The adults were to listen to the students and provide overall support. The program was a huge success at Huntington; there was a 47% decrease in suspensions over the previous year, and reliance only upon volunteer help that cost nothing to taxpayers (Shore, 193).

        I propose that a program like the adopt-a-kid program relying on volunteer help be implemented, along with getting parents more involved with their children’s lives. This is a less costly route to take, and it would concentrate on the individual needs of the students rather than controlling them with counter measures similar to that of jails and prisons. But there is still a need for other safety measures to be set in place to ensure student safety. The school should get funding for a portable metal detector and one full-time security guard initiating searches only when there is reasonable grounds in conjunction with canine search dogs and random drug testing. This proposal would cost roughly $14,905.96 to $ 21,575.96, per school year, and I am positive that this would be in the best interest of the students.

Works Cited

http://discountdetector.com/walthrougdet.html

http://salt.claretianpubs.org/stats/2000/03/sh0003.html

http://www.digital-id-badges.com/

http://www.keepschoolssafe.org

http://www.securitymanagement.com/

Sautter R, Craig. “Standing Up to Violence”. Scenarios for Writing: Issues, Analysis, and Response.
        Ed. Deljon, Renee., Rick Roehrich, Lynn Rabin Bauer. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing
        Company, 2001. pp. 181-200.

Shore Martin, Rebecca. “Personalization”. Scenarios for Writing: Issues, Analysis, and Response.
        Ed. Deljon, Renee., Rick Roehrich, Lynn Rabin Bauer. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing
       Company, 2001. pp. 273-176.