KIDS TERRORIZED AT SCHOOL

If we were producing a video we could title it "Educators Gone Wild."

About a year ago, the principal of a school in suburban Charleston, S.C.,
called the police into the school to search students allegedly suspected of
possessing drugs.

I was reminded of that Nov. 4, 2003, incident earlier this week when the
Ledger-Enquirer reported that a class of Russell County Middle School
seventh-graders were strip-searched after a teacher said about $12 was
missing from her purse.

The principal, assistant principal and a counselor reportedly took it upon
themselves to conduct strip searches after the money was not found during
searches of students' pockets and purses.

Students were taken to the restrooms. A female administrator accompanied
the girls while the school's principal, Larry Screws, accompanied the boys.
In the restrooms, the students were asked to remove their garments and some
underwear, the grandmother of one student said.

What were these adults thinking -- having children remove their underwear?

Sounds as though some intervention is needed. The students need to be able
to talk to professionals -- not including the counselor who searched them
- -- about that dehumanizing experience. And they need to know this is not
acceptable behavior.

And there seem to be some anger management/control issues going on with the
adults.

The Russell County Schools Code of Student Conduct states:

If the principal and his/her designee conclude that a more intrusive search
(i.e., a strip search) is needed, they shall call the parents of the
students involved and report their suspicions to the police, who shall be
responsible for any such search. School employees shall not conduct such
searches.

There is no indication that protocol was followed at Russell County Middle
School. In South Carolina, however, then-Principal George McCrackin said he
had received reports from staff members and students at Stratford High
School in Goose Creek, S.C., that there was a lot of drug activity, so he
called the police and asked them to be there when one particular bus-load
of students arrived.

"The volume and the amount of marijuana coming into the school is
unacceptable," McCrackin said in defense of the terrorization of the
students, which was caught on surveillance video. The video showed police
waving their guns and searching lockers as students were flat on their
stomachs or sides.

Guns at the ready, screaming police came into the school and ordered all
students to lie on the floor and then handcuffed anyone who didn't comply
quickly enough. Students reported having guns placed to their heads and
having teeth-bearing police drug dogs in their faces.

But both situations netted big, fat zeros. No drugs were found on the
students at Stratford High, and no money was found on the students at
Russell County Middle School.

Some of our educators really have gone wild.