Administrators have incentives at the college level to cover up/deny crimes to protect the public face of the college who are trying to attract enrollees...even the military academies -- witness the rape coverups.  At the high school/middle school levels, the goal is to establish authority and intimidate students into 'behaving.'  They have little concept of 'innocent until proven guilty.'

School people stripsearching a student tells you how far this crap has gone.  In the 60s/70s it was 'the length of the boys' hair and the shortness of the girls' skirts' that drove school folks mad.

Control:  One reason authoritarian types go into school administration, law enforcement.

Gave me the heebie-jeebies when it was first instituted, for all the reasons you might imagine.  I know there could be situations where I could be glad there was a cop there, but I can also think of reasons why it's a bad idea.

When my older daughter got to middle school, the county instituted a new policy on OTC medications: parents could fill out and check off which medications their child was permitted to take, and if the child needed a cough drop or an Advil or a Tylenol, he or she just had to go to the nurse and ask for it.  With a no-tolerance drug policy in place, parents insisted that their children had to be able to take an Advil or an antihistamine at school, if needed, and not be expelled because they had one of these drugs in their purse or locker or pocket.  It was ridiculous to have to call parents to come in to the school for the express purpose of giving their child an OTC medication.  While going to the nurse might also not be the ideal way to handle things, there is something to be said for an adult having the opportunity to assess whether the child has something a lot more serious going on than just a simple headache.  I see nothing wrong with "I have a sore throat, can I have a throat lozenge" being followed by "let's see if you have a fever, and let me take a look" if it means that maybe I find out that my kid might have strep and need to see the doctor - or maybe someone else's kid has strep and would otherwise be passing the bacteria on to others.

From Thomas' dissent (took out all the citations):

Here, petitioners had reasonable grounds to suspect that Redding was in possession of prescription and non-prescription drugs in violation of the school's prohibition of the "non-medical use, possession, or sale of a drug" onschool property or at school events.... As an initial matter, school officials were aware that a few years earlier, a student had become "seriously ill" and "spent several days in intensive care" after ingesting prescription medication obtained from aclassmate. Fourth Amendment searches do not occur in a vacuum; rather, context must inform the judicial inquiry. In this instance, the suspicion of drug possession arose at a middleschool that had "a history of problems with students usingand distributing prohibited and illegal substances on campus."

The school's substance-abuse problems had not abated by the 2003-2004 school year, which is when the challenged search of Redding took place. School officials had found alcohol and cigarettes in the girls' bathroom during the first school dance of the year and noticed that a group of students including Redding and Marissa Glines smelledof alcohol. Several weeks later, another student, Jordan Romero, reported that Redding had hosted a party before the dance where she served whiskey, vodka, and tequila. Romero had provided this reportto school officials as a result of a meeting his mother scheduled with the officials after Romero "bec[a]me violent" and "sick to his stomach" one night and admitted that "he had taken some pills that he had got[ten] from a classmate." At that meeting,Romero admitted that "certain students were bringingdrugs and weapons on campus." One week later, Romero handed the assistant principal a white pillthat he said he had received from Glines. He reported "that a group of students [were] planning ontaking the pills at lunch."

School officials justifiably took quick action in light ofthe lunchtime deadline. The assistant principal took the pill to the school nurse who identified it as prescription-strength 400-mg Ibuprofen. A subsequentsearch of Glines and her belongings produced a razor blade, a Naproxen 200-mg pill, and several Ibuprofen 400-mg pills. I When asked, Glines claimed that she had received the pills from Redding. A search of Redding's planner, which Glines had borrowed, then un-covered "several knives, several lighters, a cigarette, and a permanent marker."  Thus, as the majority acknowledges, the totality of relevant circumstances justified a search of Redding for pills.

What would prompt them to grant immunity?

Shouldn't these individuals be held to a higher standard? What lesson do kids come away with?

As for Thomas, I expect nothing good out of him.