Crozier said the faculty denied the searches were strip-searches, but he added that there are different interpretations of what the term means. “According to the people that we’ve talked to the first time, and I’ve talked to them maybe once or twice, they’ve said it would not fall into that category,” he said. “I’m real careful about saying that because it could be interpreted differently.”

Tell you what, buddy. Let’s get you in a situation where hostile people who have authority over you are demanding that you remove your underwear, and then you tell us how you interpret that.

Maybe Crozier defines “strip search” as full-out cavity searches. “Heck, these girls didn’t undergo pelvic examinations or colonoscopies, so what are they so riled up about? There’s nothing inappropriate about a man who works in a school ordering teenage girls to take off their clothes. Nothing at all!”

Ah, America!  Land of the Free!  Home of the Brave!

A shining beacon of liberty whose example inspires the whole world!  A golden place where justice prevails at all times!  Where all are innocent until proven guilty!  Where the rights of the individual are paramount!

Unless you are a “terrorist”...

Or you talk back to a cop…

Or you’re a teenage girl in school…

But other than that small but growing list of exceptions, America is the Greatest Nation on Earth!...

Fuck this shit.

Now I have to teach my daughters that no teacher has the right to tell them to remove their clothing.  It should be blatently OBVIOUS, but I’ll have to teach them to just say no, and insist that they need a parent and a lawyer present, or for the school to just go ahead and call the police.

Better they be arrested than sexually abused.

There is no word for the fury that would be unleashed if this happened to my child.  Fortunately my oldest is respectful of authority but not cowed- I think she -might- have the ability to say no.  Then again, who knows, being scared, accused of something she didn’t do, and under pressure… will definitely be having a short talk about how she has the right to set a boundary in such a case and to demand I be called in.

I got it!  It’s only a strip search if a stripper pole is involved!

This was just a naked search.

Ya know, I could have sworn we just won this fight.

Goodness, is almost as if we’re in a fascist nation where judicial rulings that don’t conform to authoritarian cult standards are ignored whenever possible.

Had no idea that Iowa was such a hotbed of closet pedophiles.

<em.I’ll be very impressed with parental restraint if Mr. Croghan still has his teeth by the end of the week. </em>

If he were here in Montana I would give odds that he would not survive that long.

So on the one hand we have adults punishing teenage girls for sending nude photo to their boyfriends, or posing in their bras, and charging them with child pornography - but on the other we have judges who distribute photos of underage girls being assaulted and school officials who force them to strip naked.

All those suspicions I had as a teenage girl about adults’ creepy fascination with my body and my sexuality have turned out to be true. It’s stomach turning. And I have to say, I can see how even assertive girls would be scared to refuse. I doubt many fifteen year olds are up on Supreme Court decisions and I’m sure the teachers involved applied the usual threats of punishment.

Can we just have a Mandy Rice-Davies bot that pops up every time some entitled authoritarian asshole says something like this? Of course he’s going to find someone willing to tell him (especially off the record) that anything short of a cavity search with elbow-length gloves isn’t really a strip search. Just like George Bush found half a dozen lawyers willing to say that waterboarding wasn’t torture.

If these guys said anything else, they’d be copping to multiple sexual assaults of a minor and to the very expensive torts that go with it. so of course they’ll lie, and maybe even believe their own lies. They’ll be able to manufacture plenty of remorse by trial time so that their attitudes don’t get used against them for sentencing or damages, and the public outcry could win them a change of venue to somewhere where their lawyer can try and drum up sympathy for the threats they received because of a simple mistake blah blah.

Oh, and even if the money had been found, the strip search still would have been illegal.

“So on the one hand we have adults punishing teenage girls for sending nude photo to their boyfriends, or posing in their bras, and charging them with child pornography - but on the other we have judges who distribute photos of underage girls being assaulted and school officials who force them to strip naked.
All those suspicions I had as a teenage girl about adults’ creepy fascination with my body and my sexuality have turned out to be true.”

Yes.  This.  It took me years to piece together the extent to which the rules at my Catholic high school and the way they were enforced grew out of the administrators’ fixation on female teenage bodies - certain bodies in particular.

In a sane universe these people would already be charged with professional misconduct and sexual assault of (a) minor(s).

I really hope this goes to court.  The district could stand to lose millions here, and that might finally send a message.

I’m a teacher, and this makes me ashamed to be one.  I hope these families sue this district into oblivion.

Wasn’t there something in the S.Ct. decision on not allowing monetary damages because there was some confusion among the lower courts?  (Maybe I’m thinking about a different issue.)  If so, there should be no such impediment to large monetary awards.  The knuckleheads don’t even have the excuse of preventing imminent potential harm to other students that the earlier case had in the strip search for drugs.

Dan - both/and blog!

The individuals can be prosecuted, and the district can be sued.

Anybody else stunned by the fact that there are *high school officials* who deem it appropriate to make teenagers take off their clothes for, well, any reason? Other than a chemical/biological spill I cannot imagine any situation when that would be justified.

Remember RW SCOTUS (then-)nom Alito’s “case” for the egregiously unfounded strip-search of a child boiled down to ‘but ... but ... we needed evidence!”, as if the kid was some IKEA modular footstool/storage cube potentially with fingerprints and drugs all over it, but no human rights?

That’s what inured our watchdogs to tolerate crap like this; objecting somehow became the radical posture, rather than a non-partisan neutral baseline of basic democracies—even the sucky borderline ones.

Old Alito recap:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060123/editors

Like many others cast to the the periphery of the Alito non-debate, I was astounded at the Bush-era tendency to shred basic, inviolable rights for the sake of short-term PR advantage.

Shorter Dems: Warrants and shit? Not the ‘right fight’ at this absolute moment so FOAD. Unless you’re some bonkers Inappropriate Beverage Imbibing Terra Enablin’ Hitler Luvin Queer, stop drawing GOP ire upon our immaculate powdered asses by whining about this stuff.

Later ... FISA! The impromptu cavity search of your worst nightmares, now with 99.99% less lube!!! (Oh, and “liberals” like Joke Line calling Glenn Greenwald a “civil rights absolutist” as if it’s a slur.)

SCOTUS decided that the original law was confuzzled enough that they couldn’t be held responsible, but that their clarification made it, well, clear that strip searching teens was illegal.

“Other than a chemical/biological spill I cannot imagine any situation when that would be justified.”

Not to nitpick, or even disagree, but even, or especially, in that sort of situation, it shouldn’t be the school officials making those decisions, but the trained, expert, and appropriate first responders - like, oh, say, the cops in the case of the accusation of theft.

When I was in high school and had about $300 stolen from my purse during gym class, I filed a report, and that was the end of it. If I had been asked to strip for the same reason, I would have let them arrest me, and I would NOT have wanted this done to any of my classmates. And what as stolen from me was a much greater sum.

Why were MALE officials allowed to do this in the first place? Not that it would have been any more appropriate with female officials, but didn’t this send a red flag to SOMEONE?! Nope, because women are second class citizens, who have no protection or rights when there is the slightest suspicion that we have done something wrong. And especially not when it would deprive men the chance to catch a peek at our naked bodies. Seriously? A strip search over $100? This reeks of opportunism on the part of the officials.

I’ll be very impressed with parental restraint if Mr. Croghan still has his teeth by the end of the week.

I have to be honest… if some creepy pedophile male faculty person forced my daughter to strip, I would be tempted to go to his house and stick a shotgun up his ass and make him beg me not to permanently displace his intestines.

And I fucking hate guns.

I hope this asshole winds up being imprisoned for sexual assault.

Why were MALE officials allowed to do this in the first place? Not that it would have been any more appropriate with female officials, but didn’t this send a red flag to SOMEONE?!

I think it’s totally inappropriate and inexcusable regardless of the gender of the faculty person initiating the strip search, but that said, I think it’s even more offensive if it is a male responsible for it.

Yeah, this is pretty obviously sexual assault of a minor.

MALE SCHOOL OFFICIALS FORCING TEENAGE GIRLS TO STRIP NAKED?????!!!!!!!!!!  Their asses should be locked up, pronto.  Let me guess- there was no authority figure present to check them for erections.

<i>All those suspicions I had as a teenage girl about adults’ creepy fascination with my body and my sexuality have turned out to be true.<./i>
When I see older men checking out young girls it makes me so angry. I don’t even have kids, but if this was my kid? I would demand criminal charges be pressed. Sick bastards.

If you read the original article, the male involved is the authority figure at the school where the buck stops, not the one actually involved in the strip.  This is disturbing though: 

. . .the five girls were required to remove all or part of their clothing in the Aug. 21 incident while a classmate and a female guidance counselor witnessed the search.

Why was a student there watching this?  I mean, at the very least, shouldn’t they have thought to keep this private amongst the adults? 

When did strip searching become vogue?

Iowa,more and more like Texas just with less executions and lots of corn. (Apologies in advance Amanda)

I remember the furor several months ago over the girl who had to partially strip as a result of having been caught with cold medicines on her person without the school nurse knowing.

I also remember the discussion here that followed. It ended up devolving into a shouting match over whether a student should be allowed to have over-the-counter drugs in their possession at any time during the school day.

While I did not advocate the use of a partial strip-search to find the medicines on the girl’s person (who, as I recall, repeatedly refused to hand them over when she knew she had them on her) I stood up for the school administration on the point of being aware about the drugs, but no further.

This is VASTLY different.

There is no reason whatsoever that this should have ever been permitted. The teachers involved should be immediately dismissed as should the superintendent (Crozier).

Although, if you look at the comments attached to the article itself, it would appear that the problem seems to run deeper than just the school administration - the entire board believes itself to be above the law (there are some people calling in the comments for a complete house-cleaning on the school board).

As a teacher, I can understand the need to ensure the safety and security of people’s possessions and persons at school. It’s understood that you, as a teacher, are going to do your level best to make sure that students don’t steal, don’t fight, don’t hurt each other. But by the same token, these actions are unforgivable. What these teachers did isn’t their “level best,” it was going to the extreme.

These teachers (and the superintendent) should lose their teaching licenses indefinitely, and shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a school position ever again.

That said: I’d be interested to know more about the girl who alleged that $100 had been stolen from her purse. Despite the unforgivable outcome to this, I would be interested to know how it actually got started, since they never actually found the stolen money. And what the hell is a high-school student doing carrying $100 around in their purse for? Isn’t that a little too much money for a high school student to just be “carrying around”?

Please read the articles linked.  Gross errors in fact in comments above.  No male teachers or administrators conducted the search.  That was done by a female counselor.  Of course, it was the male administrators that made the decision to do the search, they just didn’t actually conduct it.

It’s still creepy, and a violation of the law.
I think the fact that the accusing student witnessed the searches makes it even more troubling.  What is up with that?

DizzyMusician, it’d be common to carry that type of money around my high school when you were going to buy dance tickets (prom $100, homecoming $40, but this was in 2002), or perhaps a fee for an activity (marching band was $130, but that was over the summer).

Wow, it seems that they not only strip-searched these students, but they didn’t even do it in private!  Since when does theft of any amount call for a strip search anyway?  I’m pretty sure it’s illegal for police to strip-search regular citizens who have been accused of theft.  If there is any threat in a school that does require a strip-search, then law enforcement should be called in so that people can do it who have been trained to do it.  If it’s not a crime that police would strip-search for, then the school certainly shouldn’t strip-search either.  It really is that simple, but then I guess certain school employees wouldn’t get the power trip that they crave so much.  Also, it would require people to view students as actual humans and citizens with actual rights, and then the world crumble because students would get all uppity thinking that they’re real people and stuff.

and what the hell is a high-school student doing carrying $100 around in their purse for?

Many teenagers have to rely on cash only, because they often don’t have access to safer ways to store money.  They can’t get credit cards, and most of them can’t get a debit card or even a checking account unless their parent agrees to be the main account subscriber, giving the parents the right to spend the money if they choose.  I was lucky enough to have trustworthy parents and I had a checking account with my mom since I was 12.  However, not everyone has great parents.  If this student had money in cash, she probably felt the safest place was to keep it with her at all times.  Or, maybe she planned to go to the mall after school, or any number of things.  But why am I even explaining this?  She has a right to have $100 cash, and she has no obligation to provide you with an explanation.

Lymis, I agree. My point was that unless there’s an immediate threat of bodily harm where minutes count there’s just no reason for a school official/counselor to ask a teenager to remover all of her clothes.

As to the counselor, I don’t think it matters that she was a woman. I only see female patients but just because I’m also female does not mean it’s in any way appropriate for me to ask patients to disrobe in front of me (something I’ve never done, or would ever do). The person who did this displayed no trace of judgment or professionalism.

Ugh, that would be remove.

Ashley: I could see that, but I find it’s rare to be carrying around that much in cash, especially in the age of ATM cards. It’s too early in the year for prom or homecoming, and typically activity fees are all paid by check (so the money doesn’t get spent on something else).

That’s been my experience as a teacher. I’ve never had a student pay any activity fees with cash. I’ve had students buy tickets with cash, but that was small amounts, typically less than $30.

None the less, it’s possible that that’s what it was for; although I find it highly unlikely. If it was indeed activity fee money (we are at the beginning of the school year), then the parent needs to be a little smarter about it and write a check rather than give the kid cash. That way the kid doesn’t go out and spend it on something.

Of course, none of this takes away from the absolutely reprehensible actions of the school staff. The fact that the accusing student witnessed this makes it only worse; and in no small way makes me more suspicious of the accusing student’s motive. While the article does not say, it makes me ask: Did the accusing student ask to witness the search, was she asked by the teachers to witness, or was she told by the teachers to witness it?

There are a lot of details missing on this, and while it’s fairly clear that the teachers and administrators need to be punished for their gross error in judgment, there’s always a possibility that there’s more to it.

Catgirl:

But why am I even explaining this?  She has a right to have $100 cash, and she has no obligation to provide you with an explanation.

Yes, she has a right to have that much cash on her. That kind of a response is counterproductive and unhelpful if I’m the teacher involved in trying to help you with the problem of stolen money.

If I’m the administrator or teacher involved in helping her, asking her why she chose to carry that much in cash is going to be a question. Not to pry or to place blame, but to find out what purpose that much money was for. Because if it indeed was for something school-related as Ashley suggested above, and there was a deadline, I might be able to help her avoid that deadline.

Now, yes, if her answer is “I was going to the mall after school” or something like that, I might suggest to her that she look into a savings account with an ATM card (because you don’t need a parent to cosign for that) because it’s safer than carrying cash.

Saying “I don’t have to tell you” when I’m the teacher trying to help you with this problem isn’t going to endear me to your cause.

I could see that, but I find it’s rare to be carrying around that much in cash, especially in the age of ATM cards.

It’s not as easy as you think for a minor to get an ATM card if they don’t have a parent willing to help them.  Either way, you have no right to be suspicious about anyone carrying around cash, even if that person is a teenager.  She doesn’t have to explain to you what she’s doing with every penny she has.  Teens are legally allowed to have money and do what they want with it, just like any other citizen.

Catgirl:

You are misreading my intent, and it’s getting more and more obvious.

I have no problem at all with teenagers who have money. I am not suspicious of her need to have that much money - I’m concerned that she’s making herself a target by carrying that much money in a form that is easily stolen.

Stop assuming I’m being dictatorial and look at it objectively.

and what the hell is a high-school student doing carrying $100 around in their purse for?

Wow, you’re right Dizzy.  She’s probably a methhead or something.  They’d better search her thoroughly for—oh, wait…

$100 doesn’t buy what it used to, genius.

If you read the original article, the male involved is the authority figure at the school where the buck stops, not the one actually involved in the strip.

There are TWO males named in the story:

Dan Crozier, the Interim Superintendent - he appears to be the administrator not directly involved who is acting as a spokesman for the school.

Paul Croghan, the activities Director - he was the one who was put on suspension following the incident.  Though the story doesn’t directly name him as the person who specifically ordered the strip search, it’s hard to infer anything else, since he is the only one who has been sanctioned in any way.

I am not suspicious of her need to have that much money - I’m concerned that she’s making herself a target by carrying that much money in a form that is easily stolen.

And if she hadn’t worn that short skirt to school today, that boy wouldn’t have grabbed her ass.  Now maybe she’ll think twice about wearing short skirts.

What?  I’m just trying to be helpful and explain to her how she can avoid getting her ass grabbed in the hallway.

Dizzy, stop blaming the victim. I know you think you’re being all level-headed and adult and shit, but you’re actually just being an asshole and you need to stop. Five teenagers were sexually violated by an authority they should’ve been able to trust. When that’s the headline, what “more to it” do you feel the need for there to be? And what in God’s name makes you think that, in response to the news that five teenagers have been sexually violated by an authority they should’ve been able to trust, this “oh look at me I’m so even-handed” tone is what’s appropriate?

So, uh… what if one of the girls did have $100 on her? I mean her own money, not the stolen money. What do you want to bet these mental midgets would have stolen her cash?

IOWA: Idiots Out Walking Around.

Lymis @ #23, how did I miss such a simple observation?  That if the case were actually serious enough to merit a strip search, then it easily merited calling in professionals.

School officials strip searching teenaged girls in order to “investigate” a rules infraction is like school officials setting a broken bone.  Not your job, don’t do it, call in the professionals.

Paul Croghan, the activities Director - he was the one who was put on suspension following the incident.

So I guess no suspension for the counselor who was actually present during the strip search on account of her professional wisdom and guidance being needed to, you know, help students make proper decisions. Excellent decision.

Aside from asking irrelevant questions that shift blame to the kids instead of the predatory adults, Dizzy’s also wrong about the facts: Savana Redding didn’t have drugs on her. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/us/24savana.html?_r=1

Seriously, lots of kids don’t have ATM cards, and there are plenty of things they have to carry money for. I was the captain of a sports team in high school and collected money from my teammates to pay to get team t-shirts made, for example, so in my backpack I could very well have had $8 each from several dozen girls, which would apparently lead you to assume that I was dealing drugs. Some kids have their parents write checks, but some don’t bother writing checks for such a small amount, so get over it. And if you do have an ATM card but your bank charges fees, then it’s totally normal to withdraw $100 at a time rather than multiple small withdrawals. Why do you care why she has the money? You said maybe you could help the girl avoid getting in trouble for missing a payment deadline or advise her on safer ways to carry money, but that’s something that can be taken care of after the fact. It’s not quite as pressing an issue as “why do school authorities strip kids naked?”

Wow, you’re right Dizzy.  She’s probably a methhead or something.  They’d better search her thoroughly for—oh, wait…

$100 doesn’t buy what it used to, genius.

I admit, $100 doesn’t buy what it used to, but even so, I rarely encountered students carrying that kind of bank on them when I taught. And I taught in a very, -very- affluent school where the students were more than capable of carrying such. I’m speaking from experience—I guess that makes no difference here.

And if she hadn’t worn that short skirt to school today, that boy wouldn’t have grabbed her ass.  Now maybe she’ll think twice about wearing short skirts.

What?  I’m just trying to be helpful and explain to her how she can avoid getting her ass grabbed in the hallway.

Different circumstances and you fucking know it. It’s like driving a Lamborghini into an area known for its auto theft/chop-shop business. It -screams- “STEAL ME”. Gender is not the issue in that argument, you know it, and it’s a poor comparison to bring it up.

Dizzy, stop blaming the victim. I know you think you’re being all level-headed and adult and shit, but you’re actually just being an asshole and you need to stop.

The level of assumption here is just absolutely mind-boggling. You assume that simply because I raise a point, I automatically must be an asshole.

Maybe I do need to just jump on the bandwagon and automatically RAGE against anything that doesn’t say “fire the administrators and teachers” (which, incidentally, I -did- say above).

I may as well forget about having any kind of constructive conversation on the subject, because any time I raise my voice, I automatically get smacked with charges of “asshole” and “what right do you have”.

I’m putting myself in the position of a teacher who would have been in that situation and raising questions as they come up.

I guess that the thought of “what the teacher should have done” isn’t welcome discussion.

Aside from asking irrelevant questions that shift blame to the kids instead of the predatory adults, Dizzy’s also wrong about the facts: Savana Redding didn’t have drugs on her. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/us/24savana.html?_r=1

Where did I say she had drugs? Quote me.

The only one who mentioned drugs was Sour Kraut above.

There’s lessons to be learned all around, and nobody’s learning them. So, fine. The main victim here isn’t even the one who had the money stolen, although she’s certainly a victim.

*shrug* I give up. I suppose I should know better than to wade into shark-infested waters.

None the less, it’s possible that that’s what it was for; although I find it highly unlikely. If it was indeed activity fee money (we are at the beginning of the school year), then the parent needs to be a little smarter about it and write a check rather than give the kid cash. That way the kid doesn’t go out and spend it on something.

And this common helicopter-parenting like mentality is one reason why so many upper/upper-middle class undergrads I met from my own college years onwards end up being unable to handle their own cash and otherwise manage their finances once they were no longer under their parents’ supervision and end up spending themselves into deep financial holes once they enter college/workplace. 

Though I personally never carried more than $5 on me as a teen back in the ‘90s, my parents made it a point to give me a lot of cash on occasion to spend not only because it was less of a hassle than writing checks (some school fees were cash only), but also as a test to ensure that I can be responsible for my own finances once I was on my own in college and beyond. 

If adolescents aren’t going to be given the opportunity to learn how to handle large sums of cash/funds when they are still in high school, what makes you think they’d suddenly be able to handle such responsibilities in college or beyond where the odds are that they’re no longer under the watchful eyes of their parents.  As a 17 year old first year in college visiting a friend’s campus, I was astounded to find older undergrads being so ill-prepared in this department because “their parents wrote the check” or otherwise handled everything financial that they dug themselves deep financial holes….including a few who spent the entire semester’s budgeted funds within the first month of the semester and then felt entitled to yell at their parents to demand more money.

IMO, better to learn lessons on independently handling large sums of cash/funds while one is still in high school than to assume they’d learn such lessons somehow by osmosis and end up spending the whole semester’s/year’s budget within the first month or two of the school year because they were never given any/given too little chances to learn how to self-manage themselves in junior high/high school.

It’s not as easy as you think for a minor to get an ATM card if they don’t have a parent willing to help them.

Also, most high school kids carrying ATM cards IME tend to be from middle-upper-class backgrounds.  If you were working-class like my immediate family or the majority of my public magnet high school, most parents didn’t have enough income/cash to even establish an account with ATM privileges….especially back when I was a teen.  Unless you were an upper-east sider or a well-off suburban teen, most teens….especially back when I was one didn’t carry ATM cards.  Back then, a high school classmate having one was a sign s(he) was from an upper/upper-middle class family. 

Different circumstances and you fucking know it. It’s like driving a Lamborghini into an area known for its auto theft/chop-shop business. It -screams- “STEAL ME”. Gender is not the issue in that argument, you know it, and it’s a poor comparison to bring it up.

Really? You’re still placing the onus/focus on the victim/potential victim rather than on the perpetrator where the onus/focus should be.  But that doesn’t matter….because it is so much easier to blame the victim…

Dizzy:
I think that the trigger for a great deal of the anger flowing your way is that your position can be fairly summarized as:
1.  “I am not suspicious of her need to have that much money”
But.
2. I have a right to question her on why she has that money and seek/demand an explanation.
3. I disagree with her having that much money and wish to lecture her on why she should not carry that much money.

You can see why they’re pissed at you, can’t you?  You make the point that you’re not suspicious but wish to retain the right interrogate and condemn, (or, if you wish to use less loaded words, question and advise).  If having cash is not suspicious then why act like a copper?

Where did I say she had drugs? Quote me.

quoting you: “While I did not advocate the use of a partial strip-search to find the medicines on the girl’s person (who, as I recall, repeatedly refused to hand them over when she knew she had them on her)”

If I’m the administrator or teacher involved in helping her, asking her why she chose to carry that much in cash is going to be a question.

It really shouldn’t be, because it’s irrelevant. If the student needed that money for something with a deadline, believe me, you *will* hear them wailing “I needed that money for my cheer dues!” or whatever.

Or, you could ask, “Is this money for something you need right away?” which does the bare minimum of prying into things that are not. your. business.

It doesn’t matter what your intentions are. Attitudes like the one you express here (even or perhaps especially with the “but I’m trying to help you honey” reasoning to excuse prying) are a HUGE reason why teens see adults as meddling and don’t trust us. If you want high school or middle school students to trust you, you will do as little prying (or things that could be construed as prying) as possible, and learn to trust that they will come to you if they think you ought to know something. It’s that simple.

They didn’t tear the girls’ clothing off.  Therefore, it was completely voluntary.

Uh huh.

I have told my kids, and I think ALL parents need to tell their kids: NEVER take your clothing off for ANYBODY who demands it like this.  What will they do?  You do NOT have to do this ... EVER.

And, yes, I will fully support my child for his refusal to cooperate.

It is entirely possible that the girl in question never had any money, and wanted to use the school system to harass some peers.

Attitudes like the one you express here (even or perhaps especially with the “but I’m trying to help you honey” reasoning to excuse prying) are a HUGE reason why teens see adults as meddling and don’t trust us. If you want high school or middle school students to trust you, you will do as little prying (or things that could be construed as prying) as possible, and learn to trust that they will come to you if they think you ought to know something. It’s that simple.

Not only that, the teen will justifiably realize that you and possibly other authority figures are not to be trusted to give advise without such meddling which only exacerbates potential problems down the line. 

Not to mention the underlying assumption that teens cannot be trusted to handle cash at all as seen in this statement:

Ashley: I could see that, but I find it’s rare to be carrying around that much in cash, especially in the age of ATM cards. It’s too early in the year for prom or homecoming, and typically activity fees are all paid by check (so the money doesn’t get spent on something else).

Better to know if said teen can handle large sums of cash/funds independently while still in high school than to baby them by having parents take care of it by “writing a check” and assuming they will somehow gain such experience through osmosis in college and beyond. 

IME….the osmosis option does not work very well for young adults whose parents sheltered them so much that they have no idea on how to handle cash/funds under their control once they leave home for college/workplace.

Different circumstances and you fucking know it. It’s like driving a Lamborghini into an area known for its auto theft/chop-shop business. It -screams- “STEAL ME”. Gender is not the issue in that argument, you know it, and it’s a poor comparison to bring it up.

Considering that we’re discussing teenage girls who were forced to strip naked on the orders of male administrators, it’s pretty weak to claim this has nothing to do with gender.  Like it or not, demanding to know why the student who was robbed brought $100 to school isn’t going to do jack shit to solve the problem of students being illegally strip-searched.  Unless, of course, you’re blaming the robbery victim and implying that if she hadn’t been so stupid as to bring money to school, her classmates wouldn’t have been strip-searched, so clearly it’s all the fault of the robbery victim and not the school administrators who decided the solution was to strip-search teenage girls.

And I taught in a very, -very- affluent school where the students were more than capable of carrying such.

If you taught in a very affluent school, you taught somewhere that kids would be far more likely to have their own credit card or ATM card given to them by their parents, so they wouldn’t need to carry cash.  In a more middle-class or working-class school, you’d have more kids with cash, because their parents wouldn’t be able to give them their own credit card.

It also wasn’t uncommon in my high school experience to know that a peer had pocketed money intended for another purpose, then reported it stolen to cover their rear end with mom and dad.

It might be possible that the girl with the missing money was doing this as well, and didn’t expect the perverse reaction which resulted.

I had thoughts along Ms Kate’s line. All we know is that a student reported that $100 had been taken from her wallet. At the time of the strip-search, a far as the reporting goes, there was no proof or corroboration that the money had ever existed.

JessSnark:

Where did I say she had drugs? Quote me.

quoting you: “While I did not advocate the use of a partial strip-search to find the medicines on the girl’s person (who, as I recall, repeatedly refused to hand them over when she knew she had them on her)”

Read the full post, please. Don’t partially quote me and then claim I got the facts wrong when the first few paragraphs of that post (including the part you quoted) were about a post that happened long ago, but was similar in circumstances to this one. I was drawing a comparison to two similar but unrelated events and then explaining the differences in my viewpoint of the circumstances.

What I actually said above:

I remember the furor several months ago over the girl who had to partially strip as a result of having been caught with cold medicines on her person without the school nurse knowing.

I also remember the discussion here that followed. It ended up devolving into a shouting match over whether a student should be allowed to have over-the-counter drugs in their possession at any time during the school day.

While I did not advocate the use of a partial strip-search to find the medicines on the girl’s person (who, as I recall, repeatedly refused to hand them over when she knew she had them on her) I stood up for the school administration on the point of being aware about the drugs, but no further.

This is VASTLY different.

Mnemosyne:

If you taught in a very affluent school, you taught somewhere that kids would be far more likely to have their own credit card or ATM card given to them by their parents, so they wouldn’t need to carry cash….

I’ll give you that point. I’ll bet I have my blinders on (so to speak) about the culture issue, and can see that point. In my head, it makes very little sense to carry so much cash on one’s person. But, I temper that remark by stating that I’ve lived that way for a long time, and as such, find it strange when people sometimes do things differently. Different strokes.

As for blaming the one who was robbed for the strip search, that’s not my intent. Which, as another poster so eloquently stated, makes no difference, so I’m going to drop that line of discussion and take it no further. I accept that regardless of intent, how you are interpreted is what really matters. I’ve been interpreted as an asshole here, and I accept that no matter how much I try to explain otherwise, that’s not going to change. So, regardless of how I believe I was presenting things, an asshole I shall be.

Do I agree at all with what was done? Absolutely not. In fact, I’m honestly surprised that only one of the administrators involved (the Activities Director, Paul Croghan) appears to have been reprimanded about this. Croghan needs to be gone, the interim superintendent needs to be on unpaid leave at the very least and the female counselor who supervised the strip searches also needs to be gone.

In Croghan’s and the counselor’s cases, their teaching licenses need to be revoked. In the administrator’s (Crozier) case, at the very least he needs to be seriously evaluated for his competency and more than likely needs to be fired from the district. If he was truly as complicit as he sounds in the interview, he needs to permanently lose his administrator’s license as well. If he’s an unwitting chump, he just needs to be fired.

Geh. My daughter’s first public school experience is coming up soon, and will be in Japan. I haven’t heard of anything like this happening there, thankfully. And she’ll be returning to Canada with us by the time she’s 8 or so, and thus is less likely to experience this kind of crap.

That said, the fact that it’s happening down in the US means that it may well happen up here in a few years. Which means I have to drill it into her head that she don’t have to take this kind of shit from anyone, and I will always back her up. Which is stupid. I shouldn’t have strive to protect my daughter from strip searches given by school officials. It’s so utterly batshit loony that this even happened, I can’t understand what must have been going through their minds.

Not only is a gross invasion of privacy, humiliating and unjustified, but it’s also ineffective… after all, somebody else could have legitimately had $100 of their own money on them, and no way to prove it was theirs. Just as the accuser probably would have had no way to prove it was hers. Cash is pretty anonymous.

Jesus Christ. Was no one thinking at the school that day?

This was just all kinds of illegal & wrong.

In the discussion here - whoever asked what the girl who complained of the theft was doing with $100 in the first place should be loudly ignored. And we all know it - so please stop wasting keystrokes on that mess.

I just finished describing this incident to my 8 year old son & I let him no this: Under no circumstances should he remove his clothing for anyone at school.

Well, what if they threaten to call mom & dad or (gasp) the police? His answer should be: Call them please. The thing is - with a young Black boy, the police thing could end badly too. :(

I thought you were talking about the Savana Redding case since you didn’t give specifics and that was the most recent high-profile strip search case in the news. Which case were you talking about?

JessSnark:

It was awhile back and posted here—a student had been brought in to be given a search because she had been caught with (I believe) cold medication on her. It was some kind of over-the-counter medication, quite harmless. The school chose to raise a ruckus about it and brought her in to have a cop do a full strip-search on her. She repeatedly denied having the medication despite the fact that she had been caught with it in her hand by the teacher who brought her in and was belligerent when it came to cooperating with the principal (may have been the vice-principal, I don’t exactly remember), so they strip-searched her. Of course, it made the news, and landed here as a discussion of whether strip-searches were ever appropriate in a high school setting (which they’re not).

That was what I was talking about. I don’t recall names, and I never heard any more about it. If indeed it was Savana Redding, then more information came out after the discussion that was had that I was unaware of.

I just finished describing this incident to my 8 year old son & I let him no this: Under no circumstances should he remove his clothing for anyone at school.

Well, what if they threaten to call mom & dad or (gasp) the police? His answer should be: Call them please. The thing is - with a young Black boy, the police thing could end badly too. :(

This.

It’s been repeated by several others so far, but that’s the real lesson here.

Dizzy, why would it ever, ever be your business how much money your students were carrying?  You talk about rarely encountering students with a lot of cash, but why on earth would you ever know?  Did you regularly go through your student’s pockets at your school?

If so, please let us know which school you worked for, so that we know to never send our children there.

Why did she have $100?  Because it was her’s, and that’s more than you need to know.

Dizzy, why would it ever, ever be your business how much money your students were carrying?  You talk about rarely encountering students with a lot of cash, but why on earth would you ever know?  Did you regularly go through your student’s pockets at your school?

If so, please let us know which school you worked for, so that we know to never send our children there.

Why did she have $100?  Because it was her’s, and that’s more than you need to know.

You know, it’s one thing when you can argue the point I was trying to make. It’s entirely another when you assume that because I raise the point or because I make a statement, I must be doing something wrong. It just makes the whole discussion stupid. I admit, I raised the point, so it’s my fault we’re in this mess. But to continue to jab and poke at it goes beyond simply pointing out the fallacy of bringing it up, it gets into personal attacks and maliciousness.

For your information, I was the band director at the school I taught at. This means, in addition to handling the music program, I also had to handle cash when it came to getting students’ instruments repaired as well as resupplying parts. I had a locked cashbox in my office for exactly that purpose. I would purchase reeds, valve oil, and parts from a local music store, and make them available to my students at cost. I collected money from them to pay the music store for the stocks of parts and accessories they would provide for me.

Now, Jrod, if you’re satisfied that I’m not rifling through your child’s pockets by proxy over the internet, let’s stop the personal attacks and get back to the real point of discussion here: what became of the other administrators who haven’t been mentioned in the article already.

How is asking you a clarifying question assuming anything?  You haven’t actually cleared anything up, because selling items to people doesn’t actually tell you anything about how much money those people regularly carry, only that they had enough funds at that time to make a purchase. 

Thank you for clarifying that your opinions on how much money the average student might have in their pockets were based on complete bullshit.  Next time you feel like raising a point or making a statement, please make it a point or statement that is relevant to the discussion and defensible.  That way you can avoid getting poked and jabbed by that mean ol’ internet.

let’s stop the personal attacks and get back to the real point of discussion here

You mean the one that you totally fucking threadjacked by turning away from the story of five teenage girls being strip-searched in school over a weak charge, to why one teenager might have had more money on her than you have personally encountered in the relatively small group of teenagers you’ve come in contact with in your life? You mean THAT real point of discussion?

Thank you for instructing the rest of us to get back to talking about what we were talking about before you started talking about completely irrelevant shit. The point of the story was not the $100 - the point was the fucking sexual assault. Why in the god damn ever loving fucking hell does the former have anything to do with the latter?

Oh, but we’re not talking about that anymore, now that you’re tired of people telling you that you were being a jerk.

Jiminy fucking crickets.

Dizzy, I’m just wondering how you would know that most students you dealt with wouldn’t ever have had $100 on their person.  I honestly assume you didn’t do any strip-searching to find out.  I suspect you are trying to look at this in a balanced way, like a mediator or a mom would, but when it comes down to rights, people don’t want them mediated away in the name of getting along.

As to kids being forced to remove clothing…anyone ever had to change in a locker room before gym class?  Or be forced to shower afterwards under the supervision of teachers?  I think that ship has sailed a long time ago, unfortunately; that came up in the arguments about Savana Redding (I posted about it on my blog).

I was lucky in Junior High School to have had an eighth-grade social studies teacher, Miss Bankhead, who took it upon herself not to just teach us about the dry rote aspects of the US system of law, but what our rights were as citizens and students.  She was the one who told us that, if we’re suspected of shoplifting in a store, we have the right to demand a police officer come to investigate rather than having someone take us in a back room and strip-search us or sweat a confession out of us.  We learned the Miranda warning by heart.

Dizzy:

For your information, I was the band director at the school I taught at. This means, in addition to handling the music program, I also had to handle cash when it came to getting students’ instruments repaired as well as resupplying parts. I had a locked cashbox in my office for exactly that purpose. I would purchase reeds, valve oil, and parts from a local music store, and make them available to my students at cost. I collected money from them to pay the music store for the stocks of parts and accessories they would provide for me.

While you seemed to answer the question I don’t think you did.  I have taken money from people for various activities, and I didn’t know what they had in total in their pockets or purses.  If you have $100 in your pocket for something special, you might even segregate it from your lunch and reed money.

Those oboe reeds are expensive. Trust me.

Why did she have $100?  Because it was her’s, and that’s more than you need to know.

As anybody who ever worked in a school can tell you, it isn’t that simple.  Kids do have and lose money, and things get stolen.  However, the adults need to ask questions before they react in such bizarre ways as was done here. Questions like: was the money for school - should we tell Mr./Ms. Teacher about it?  Do your parents know, and should we tell them the money was stolen?  These questions don’t put blame on the alleged victim, but they go a long way toward establishing that the money existed and was indeed stolen (not pocketed, not spent on other things, not nonexistant and used as a way to get at other students, etc.).  You don’t have to blame the victim to do a basic investigation into whether there was even a crime to start with! 

This is a prime example of how many victims can be created when such victim worship precludes basic common sense. The reality is that kids are not adults and do not act like adults and sometimes pull shit and manipulate adults with blind spots (not that adults don’t do this too ...).  Unfortunately, there are a bunch of adults who don’t act like adults in this story too.

In my head, it makes very little sense to carry so much cash on one’s person.

So much cash??? $100 really isn’t that much. I regularly keep that amount in my wallet, and I’m an adult with a debit card and a credit card! And as a teenager, I got my allowance in cash, and my babysitting money in cash. I wouldn’t leave it in my purse unattended… but just having the cash doesn’t seem very unusual to me. I frequently went to the mall after school and spent that much easily, even if you buy things all on sale!

So much cash??? $100 really isn’t that much. I regularly keep that amount in my wallet, and I’m an adult with a debit card and a credit card! And as a teenager, I got my allowance in cash, and my babysitting money in cash. I wouldn’t leave it in my purse unattended… but just having the cash doesn’t seem very unusual to me. I frequently went to the mall after school and spent that much easily, even if you buy things all on sale!

Whether $100 is a lot of money or not is beside the point as that perception can vary based on one’s socio-economic background.* 

The main issue is that adults should not cast suspicions on teens or adolescents for carrying around that much cash alone. 

Would have hated having such crap heaped upon me as treasurer for one high school academic/cultural club as the annual allocated money from the school, all the collected dues and fees for club relevant outings were in cash and it was my responsibility to collect it and keep it in a safebox with supervision from club officers, members, and the supervising faculty member who was effectively hands-off.  During my yearly tenure in that position, I probably handled several thousands of dollars worth of cash from those dues and fees for club outings, special books/media, etc. 

* I keep no more than $40 and often far less in cash on my person both for security reasons and to prevent the possibility of an “impulse” purchasing decision even though that has yet to be an issue.

Isn’t it wierd how boys never steal anything and never use or sell drugs or send illicit photos to each other? Its always the girls who get strip-searched.

The case of the underage photos came ot light because an adult saw them on a male’s phone. Of course he did not get in trouble for posession of child pornography.

And in San Diego a few years back there was a ‘thong check’ at the door of the school dance, to make sure all the girls were wearing the right underwear.

If it were power hungry administrators, wouldn’t they want to humiliate everyone? Maybe they would like to, but had to settle for those people society thinks its okay to humiliate.

If it were power hungry administrators, wouldn’t they want to humiliate everyone? Maybe they would like to, but had to settle for those people society thinks its okay to humiliate.
Comment #81: bay of arizona on 09/09 at 12:20 PM

Well, after you made the excellent point “Its always the girls who get strip-searched,” my mind jumped to the prurient dimension—it’s not just that they can get away with power trips over girls who are less protected by the presumption of humanity—they get more dirty thrills out of strip-searching/shaming girls.

It’s another version of women as the “sex class,” and that socially constructed role helps explain why even heterosexual women who are administrators might be on this sleazy bandwagon—if nothing else, to gratify their male superiors with secondhand, vicarious thrills.