SCHOOL STRIP SEARCH OUTRAGES PREMIER

TORONTO, Dec. 8 (UPI) - Ontario's provincial premier says he finds it
abhorrent that a group of Grade 9 students were strip searched in a
school in the Windsor area.

Mike Harris was speaking about an incident at the Kingsville District
High School, where the vice principle and gym teacher strip searched
20 boys after $90 were reported missing.

The strip search took place on Friday, and about 200 students held a
demonstration on the school grounds on Monday.

Some of the victims told reporters they were taken into the gym
teacher's office one at a time and told to take their pants off, so
the vice principle and gym teacher could search their pockets.

They said they were then told to take off their underwear, expose
their buttocks and bend over.

Enraged students informed their parents, one of whom called the
police.

Harris told reporters today he had children in Grade 8 himself and was
deeply disturbed.

He said he could think back to his teenage years and ``the challenges
of puberty and a very sensitive age'' and could not imagine that
teachers or a vice principle anywhere on Ontario ``would have been
party for anything like this. I find it abhorrent.''

The local school board has ordered physical education teacher Dan
Bondy and vice principle John MacDonald not to have contact with the
students while the incident is investigated.

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that principles have
the right to search students on school premises if they had reasonable
grounds to believe rules are being broken.

The court's ruling came in the context of searches for narcotic drugs
brought into schools, and set out careful guidelines for searches.
Lawyers in the Windsor area said the two school staffers may have
misinterpreted the ruling.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady