DECISIONS TO SEARCH STUDENTS FUEL SUITS

As surveillance cameras, drug-sniffing dogs and metal detectors increasingly become part of the scenery at school, some fear that tactics such as student strip searches may be abused by school officials.

School districts in Missouri and Illinois, like several across the nation, are dealing with suits spawned by searches of students. Attorneys for plaintiffs say they don't quarrel with searches for drugs or weapons. But they are suing in cases where students are strip-searched for stolen items.

"Many schools are adopting criminal justice tactics in the classroom context," said Emily Whitfield, a spokeswoman with the American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed or settled at least 10 suits over student strip searches since 1995. "It seems to be increasing in the last decade or so," Whitfield says, although data on such searches is generally unavailable.

Parents allege that students have been strip-searched recently in two St. Clair County communities -- East St. Louis and Marissa -- and in the Adrian School District south of Kansas City. In each case, school staffers suspected a theft. Suits are pending in Marissa and Adrian, but not in East St. Louis.

The Adrian case began last October when a fourth-grade pupil brought a World War II medal for show-and-tell. When it was discovered missing, the teacher contacted the principal, who allegedly made the boys in the classroom file into a bathroom and strip to their underwear in front of him and a male coach. The girls were allegedly patted down, and the female plaintiff in the case claims she was made to lift her dress and reveal her underwear.

The medal was later found on the classroom floor, and the principal bought the students sodas, plaintiffs' lawyer Lyle Gregory said.

The principal, Wallace Henrickson, was suspended for five days for violating the district's policy on student searches, according to the defendants' request for a partial summary judgment. Margaret Hesse, one of the St. Louis attorneys defending the school district, refused to say whether she thought the searches were unconstitutional. But in the recent court filing, school officials deny that the searches were unconstitutional.

Gregory, of Harrisonville, initially sought $30 million in a class-action suit against the school district, but the court denied class-action certification. The current suit seeks about $150,000 for each of the two students he is representing.

The Marissa case goes back to February 1999, when two 15-year-old female students at Marissa High School were individually called into the principal's office after $84 was stolen from another student's bag, according to a suit. Each girl was asked to empty her pockets, which they did. Their lockers also were searched. The principal called on a Marissa police officer to continue the investigation.

The officer, Michael DeLong, allegedly ordered two female secretaries to take each girl into the school's vault and search their clothing. The district claims a third student identified the two as stealing the money and putting it in a bra. According to the suit, the officer denies ordering the search, but the secretaries say they were following his orders.

Neither the school's nor the officer's attorneys would comment on the case.

During the search, the girls say, they were forced to strip to their underwear. They claim that one of the secretaries, Carol Reinhardt, made inappropriate comments about their bodies and underwear during the searches.

The money was never found.

Paul Storment, the Belleville lawyer representing the two girls, says strip searches generally are allowed in schools when officials are looking for weapons or dangerous contraband, such as drugs. But when the object of an intrusive search is a small amount of money, the law favors the students' constitutional rights, he said. The girls' case scored a victory in September when the federal court in East St. Louis refused to throw out the case upon the district's and police attorneys' requests. The school and police are appealing the decision.

In another recent incident, four East St. Louis middle school students were asked to undress in bathroom stalls while guards searched their clothes for missing money outside the stalls. Superintendent Nate Anderson called the searches inappropriate and disciplined the teacher and security guards involved. But he said the district acted within its boundaries because none of the students was viewed naked at any time. The incident took place Oct. 3 at Lansdowne Junior High.