Student Rights & Responsibilities
Locker & Vehicle Searches
Locker searches have long been endorsed because the lockers belong to the
school and are loaned to the students during the school year for their use.
Some courts have indicated that when the students have put their personal
items in the locker, they have privacy rights in the contents of the
lockers. Therefore, the lockers are not school property and not subject to
search without reasonable suspicion unless students have been informed that
the lockers are school property and can be searched by school personnel.
South Dakota courts have not specifically addressed this issue. If local
districts intend to search lockers on a random basis, it would seem prudent
for local school districts to post notice in their code of conduct and/or in
visible places in the school that school lockers are school property loaned
to students for their use. Contents of those lockers may be subject to
inspection at any time. It is not appropriate, however, for a district to
select only certain students' lockers for inspection. That policy is
constitutionally suspect.
Also, vehicles in a school parking
lot may be searched if there is reasonable suspicion to believe evidence of a
violation of law or school rule will be found inside. As indicated above,
looking in the windows of a car parked in a parking lot and observing evidence
of a rule violation is not a search. Schools may also specify in written form
in their code of conduct or posted conspicuously in the school that cars
parked on school property are subject to search. This written notice reduces
the expectations of privacy by students. That notice does not authorize
random searches of the interiors of students' personal cars. Reasonable
suspicion or consent is still required before the vehicle may be searched. |
