On Oct. 25, Medomak Valley High School held a lock-down drill, in which students were sequestered in safe locations around the school for about an hour. The drill is designed to help prepare the school for an emergency involving an intruder or other dangerous person in the building, said RSU/MSAD 40 Supt. Frank Boynton.
Since the shootings at Columbine High School, lock-down drills have become standard in schools around the country, Boynton said.
However, the recent drill at MVHS was held in conjunction with a police training exercise that involved an association of police K9 units from around the state sweeping the entire school and the parking lot with police drug dogs.
No drugs or drug paraphernalia were found as a result of the search, Boynton said.
Similar searches were conducted at several schools in the area and around the state. Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant Rand Maker assisted with the search at MVHS, and said searches like this one have been conducted around Lincoln County at least once each year for at least five years.
Boothbay Region High School, Wiscasset High School, and Lincoln Academy, all conducted similar K9 searches recently, said Waldoboro Police Chief Bill Labombarde.
“It’s a win-win situation,” Maker said. “Schools get to make sure they’re safe, and we get to train in a different sort of environment.”
The search drew criticism from the Maine Civil Liberties Union after a concerned Waldoboro resident called it to their attention. The MCLU called the exercise a violation of the students’ and faculty’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.
The search appears to be legal, said Chris Toy, a former Principal at Freeport Middle School who teaches a class on school law for teachers at Antioch College New England Graduate School.
“We grant added authority to our school administrators, closer to the authority that parents have over their children,” Toy said. As long as school administrators initiate the search, not the police, it’s within their power to authorize a random police search of school property, Toy said.
Authorities with the school district and the law enforcement agencies involved all said that the school district requested the search.
“We’re trying to keep students safe and well trained and keep illegal substances out of school,” Boynton said.
The RSU/MSAD 40 School Board discussed the issue at their regular meeting on Nov. 4. The board is largely in favor of the district’s actions, with only a few minor concerns, said board chair Bonnie Davis-Micue.
“We don’t feel any Fourth Amendment rights were violated,” Davis-Micue said.
The board’s concerns related to what they perceived to be potential violations of student’s privacy resulting from police interviews following the search.
Twelve lockers were identified as having trace evidence that they may have contained drugs at some point, and police questioned the students involved, Davis-Micue said.
“When police are talking to some kids, it’s difficult to stop every kid from knowing who was questioned,” she said. “There were concerns that some kids might feel they were being unfairly accused by the rumor mill.”
The police were not involved in the interviews conducted following the search, Labombarde said. In keeping with school district policy, school administrators conducted the interviews, Labombarde said.
The board suggested that the district administration look into policy that would help protect students’ privacy in these situations, but was otherwise okay with the search, Davis-Micue said.
“The bottom line is that we don’t want drugs around our kids,” she said. “Whether it’s the kids that have them or adults, we don’t want drugs around our kids.”
The MCLU feels regardless of its legality, in this case a random search without reasonable cause is in violation of the spirit of the Fourth Amendment, said MCLU Field Director Brianna Twofoot.
“We think schools have a responsibility to teach kids their constitutional rights,” Twofoot said. “What are kids learning about freedom when they’re subjected to searches without cause at school? In this case, the school set a poor example.”
In a letter sent to the school district on Oct. 29, the MCLU strongly encouraged the district to conduct Fourth Amendment education for students, and offered to come to the school and teach lessons on students’ constitutional rights.
“This is an obvious teaching moment,” Twofoot said. “It’s a chance for teachers and administrators to talk to students about their rights – what rights they have in the school, and what rights they have in the rest of their lives.”
Boynton said he would likely not ask the MCLU to teach lessons at the school, but said district administrators are currently working on ways to bring more education about constitutional rights into the school.
Jeff Evangelos is the Waldoboro resident who alerted the MCLU of the search. Evangelos was the MSAD 40 Business Administrator for 15 years in the 1980s and ’90s, and has followed closely the changes to district policy since his tenure.
Evangelos believes that the search directly defies the intent of the district’s policy on student searches.
School district’s policy JIH covers student interviews, searches and arrests. That policy states “Students and teachers shall be notified that random searches of lockers and vehicles may be made at any time as directed by the superintendent or principal.” The policy also allows the superintendent to authorize canine patrols anywhere on school property.
However, the nine-paragraph policy outlines about a half dozen situations in which searches may be conducted, and in every case except those outlined in the preceding paragraph, the policy is explicit that searches should only be conducted when “there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will reveal evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or policies or regulations of the school.”
“Their current policy has a lot of respect for the Fourth Amendment,” Evangelos said. “This school system must hold a very low opinion of their students and faculty if they feel they have reasonable suspicion to search the entire school.”
Like the MCLU, Evangelos worries about the impression that the search will leave with the students. “If you conduct these kinds of searches, without reasonable grounds, on a regular basis, it normalizes in kids’ minds the sort of imagery we went to World War II to stop,” he said.
John Patterson, a Portland-based attorney and vice president of the MCLU, agreed. “It shouldn’t be school policy to lock kids in classrooms while drug dogs search the hallways,” Patterson said.
Last year, there were 12 drug-related incidences at MVHS, Boynton said. So when the K9 units became available to the school, he requested that they be brought in.
“We have to keep the kids separate from the dogs, for obvious safety reasons, so we did the search in conjunction with the lock-down drill,” Boynton said. “The school is a public place that houses the most precious thing in people’s lives – their children – and it’s my job to protect them to the best of my ability. We took steps that many other schools are taking; we took them openly, and we took them honestly.”
Boyton said the random school wide search does not violate the spirit of policy JIH, and preserving the safety of students preempts concerns about students’ privacy when they’re on school grounds.
“We need to help protect young people who are making good decisions yet,” Boynton said. “We need to help them make good decisions.”