RURAL MD. DRUG SEARCH BECOMES A SORE SUBJECT

CHESTERTOWN, Md. -- Heather Gore is a varsity tennis player at Kent County
High School and a majorette in the local marching band. Standing before the
school board here recently, she broke down in tears as she described the
event that has brought her much unwanted attention in her rural Eastern
Shore community.

"My name is Heather Gore," she began, sobbing before even the first word was
out. "I am a sophomore at Kent County High School, and on April 16, I was
forced to endure a partial strip-search due to a drug search carried out by
the Kent County Sheriff's Office. The humiliation that I endured that day,
and that I am still enduring, is overwhelming."

The drug search at the school -- in which 16 students were patted down and
two were ordered to remove clothing -- was just one skirmish in a national
struggle between officials eager to rid schools of drugs and critics who
complain that students' rights are often violated by overzealous
authorities.

In the flatlands of Kent County, where generations of watermen live
alongside generations of farmers, the larger struggle is writ small: a local
sheriff, two sophomore girls and several drug-sniffing dogs.

On April 16, at the invitation of Principal Gordon Sampson, officers under
the direction of Sheriff John F. Price IV swept 12 classrooms with
drug-sniffing dogs. The dogs alerted on 18 book bags, and the students who
owned them were subjected to additional searches. Sixteen were patted down.

With a school administrator in the room, Heather, 15, and another sophomore,
Lacey Fernwalt, 16, were separately ordered to partially disrobe. Lacey said
that she took her pants off and that a female deputy, Marcellene Beck,
looked inside her bra.

Heather said Beck told her to remove her skirt. The deputy lifted her tank
top, exposing her breasts, and then asked Heather to spread her legs. Beck
tugged at the edges of her underwear. "I was crying and hyperventilating. I
sat there in disbelief," she said in an interview last week.

Neither girl had drugs. Nor were drugs found in the 18 book bags that drew
the dogs' attention.

The school superintendent, Bonnie C. Ward, who declined to be interviewed
for this article, said in a statement that safe, drug-free schools are her
top priority. Although Ward announced that the high school policy on
searches will be reviewed, she has not satisfied Heather's parents, who are
seeking a public apology from the school system.

"I think everyone was a little surprised that the searches went that far,"
school system spokesman Jon Baker said.

The school handbook says officials may search a student if there is a
"reasonable suspicion" that the student possesses an illegal item. The
handbook says police may be invited into the building by school officials,
but it does not specifically mention sweeps with dogs or strip-searches.

There is no easy way to determine whether the Kent County search was legal,
said Deborah Jeon, managing attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union
of Maryland. "Everything is very case specific, and the case law is very
mixed across the country," she said. "The law is somewhat murky in this
area."

Courts have permitted searches in schools, especially since the April 1999
killings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., Jeon said.

The absence of an apology from the school system has deepened the anger of
Heather's parents, Patricia Gore and Steven Gore, who has called on Sampson
to resign. Addressing the school board May 3, Patricia Gore described an
encounter in which Price told her that the reaction of the dogs gave
authorities the legal justification to do a cavity search if they chose to.

Price, in an interview, said the dogs are reliable. "Some time or another
there have been drugs" in those bags, he said. He said the sweep turned up a
knife and a bag of marijuana that one student was seen trying to discard.
Two juveniles were arrested.

Still, he qualified his support for the actions of his deputy. "The deputy
used her discretion," Price said. "I'm not happy with the level of
discretion she used. However, it is within the limits of Maryland laws and
constitutional law."

Not everyone is so sure.

"To jump from an alert on a book bag to a strip-search is a pretty big
jump," Jeon said. She said the ACLU has not decided whether to sue on
Heather's behalf.

It would not be the first time in recent years, even on the Eastern Shore,
that school systems have faced litigation for allegedly violating
constitutional search-and-seizure protections. In Talbot County, 18 high
school students who attended a weekend party in 2000 were forced to submit
to urine tests. The school system later settled a lawsuit by agreeing to
halt student drug testing and by paying monetary damages.

And in Greene County, Va., north of Charlottesville, 50 male high school
students were forced to strip to their underwear in 1997 after another
student reported $100 missing from his wallet. Twenty-eight students settled
a federal lawsuit for $5,000 each.

Kent County school officials had asked the sheriff to conduct drug sweeps
before, Baker said, but never in recent memory had a drug sweep led to
strip-searches. In fact, some students suggested a sweep early this year as
a way to curtail drug use in the school.

Among those students was Jessi Bedell, a friend of Heather's. Jessi, 16, is
an honor student, a cheerleader and a leader in statewide student
government. Her parents are teachers in the system.

She was among the students patted down. Beck lifted up her skirt, she said.
Another officer later told her to look at it as "a learning experience."
Jessi said a Pop-Tart in her bag may have stirred the dog's interest. She
said that when she retrieved the bag, the Pop-Tart was gone.

Lacey Fernwalt said she was not bothered by the search as much as by having
to undress in front of a window with blinds that were not drawn.

Her mother, Sharon Crew, said she would like an apology but is following her
daughter's lead. Lacey has "moved on," she said. "She's put it behind her."

Heather and Lacey say they do not know why they were picked for
strip-searches. "There are so many bad people in school, and they picked on
the goodie two-shoes," Lacey said.

Price declined to comment on that issue, citing the possibility of
litigation.

Kent County, with a population of about 20,000, is so small that Beck
returned to the school a week after the search, this time as a substitute
teacher in one of Jessi's classes.

"People are going to choose sides over this," Patricia Gore said. "If
there's a lawsuit, people are going to choose sides. They're already
choosing sides."