Presidential Primaries Day 1

Hi Honors Students,

Tuesday, April 13th is the first day of Presidential March Madness. I would like you to sign on to my blog and lead a class discussion on how you feel it went.

Treasure Hunters

Well my treasure hunting cherubs, how's the search going? Please use this blog entry as a place to share thoughts on the game and help each other out (if you so choose). Remember, it's not just about solving the riddles and finding the artifacts, but also about playing your competition like a finely-tuned piano along the way!!

Probable Cause vs. Reasonable Suspicion

Over twenty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that "symbolic speech" is not protected in school when it creates an adverse learning environment (Tinker v. Des Moines). Obviously if you have been to the Maine Mall recently you noticed that the same rule does not apply in public places. But what about the safety and welfare of students? How far should schools be allowed to go in order to protect the safety of the general population? Below is a Portland Press Herald story on an incident at Winslow High School:

Strip-searches at school enter murky legal area Incidents like the one in Winslow must be decided on a case-by-case basis, a district attorney says. By COLIN HICKEY, Blethen Maine News Service October 8, 2007 Michael Kaplan Jim Evans/Blethen Maine News Services Terry Atwood, assistant principal at Winslow High School, said in court filings that the strip-search of a student was reasonable under the circumstances and constitutionally valid. WINSLOW — District Attorney Evert N. Fowle said in his 22 years in the legal profession, he had never heard of a school employee strip-searching a student -- until last month. Fowle said the strip-search of a Winslow High School girl, revealed by the Maine Civil Liberties Union on Sept. 27, never came across his desk. Sally Sutton, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union from 1984 to 2001, said she never dealt with such a case during her tenure. A school official strip-searching a student is an act that deals with fundamental rights -- specifically, the Fourth Amendment, aimed at protecting citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. Did Winslow High School officials violate the rights of the then 16-year-old girl they strip-searched from the waist up? The settlement reached between the Maine Civil Liberties Union and Winslow High does not answer the question. Nowhere in the agreement does the high school admit to violating the civil rights of the student. The fact that the school paid a settlement of $15,000 -- $6,500 in attorney fees, $8,500 in damages to the girl -- and agreed to apologize for the incident in writing are proof of regret, but not an admittance of guilt. Winslow High School Vice Principal Terry Atwood said in court filings that the search was reasonable under the circumstances and, thus, constitutionally valid. At the same time, the school system has agreed to alter its policies to prohibit strip-searches of students by school employees. All of which points to the murky nature of the Fourth Amendment, particularly as it applies to the relationship between school officials and children in a school building. "Every case as far as its legality would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis," Fowle said. "There is not a cookie-cutter way that it can be judged." CONSTITUTIONAL IMPLICATIONS The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution offers protection against a government that threatens rights of privacy through search or seizure. A public school employee is considered a government official, according to Cabanne Howard, a professor at the University of Maine School of Law. "Schools are clearly the government," he said. "There is no issue about that at all." That means a public school official can be held accountable for violating the rights of a student by strip-searching that student. A private school, in contrast, would be exempt from the law. "If parents don't like it," Cabanne said, "they can take their child out of the school." That said, a strip-search of a student is a highly invasive action regardless of the constitutional implications and could bring legal action on other grounds, said Michael J. Steinberg, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. Michael Kaplan, a lawyer with the Portland law firm of Preti, Flaherty, Beliveau & Pachios, put it in more blunt terms: "Strip- searches are particularly intrusive. And regardless of what one case or another says, you better damn well have good justification for it." PROBABLE CAUSE That gets to the issue of probable cause versus reasonable suspicion. In the legal world, there is great distinction between the two. "Suffice it to say," the ACLU's Steinberg said, "that (probable cause) is a higher standard than reasonable suspicion." Police are obligated to have probable cause, he said, before they consider strip-searching a suspect. And before they do so, they must go to court to obtain a search warrant. Public school officials, Steinberg said, do not need a search warrant, and they do not need the same level of evidence. Fowle said the first concern of school officials is the health and safety of all students and faculty in the school, a charge that, given certain circumstances, can override the civil rights of an individual. The rub is the nature of those circumstances, Steinberg said. The reasonable suspicion must first not be of a general nature, he said. For example, school officials cannot act simply on a rumor that somebody in the school is in illegal possession of prescription drugs. The magnitude of the possible violation also must be considered. To strip-search a student for stealing money, he said, would not be appropriate because the offense would not threaten the safety of other students. If the concern is a weapon, however, such an intrusive measure might be justified, he said. CASES BECOMING MORE COMMON Given the subjective nature of reasonable suspicion, as well as the intrusiveness of a strip search, Fowle argues that school officials should be extremely wary of taking such measures. "Police are probably better equipped and better trained to conduct the investigation than school officials are," he said. "I think it is probably wise for the school and local police agency to work in concert. The most important thing is to ensure the safety of everybody in the school." The ACLU's Steinberg, though, said that across the country the number of strip-searches by school officials is increasing. "I think it is more common," he said, "and it is part of a disturbing trend around the country of school officials turning schoolhouses into jailhouses. It is just one of many policies or practices of that nature that are becoming more common." "Strip-searches," he said, "just should not be conducted by school officials." Copyright © 2007 Blethen Maine Newspapers

Feel free to express your opinions!

Mr. Smith

Boys vs. Girls

My response comes from a series in the Maine Sunday Telegram titled "The New Gender Gap." The articles focus "on the disparity between boys' and girls' academic performance."

My response:

"I applaud your efforts to take on a topic such as the growing gaps in educational attainment based on gender. That being said, the theme of the several articles seems to be probing how we can change the trend organizationally, not culturally. In the fifteen years I have been an educator, I have seen countless students, mostly boys, openly question why they need to read and write so much in school because their career choice doesn't require it. Teachers correctly point out, as does your series, that those jobs are disappearing and we won't be around for the next generation. Unfortunately, most of the damage has already been done, as parents, friends, and other male role models have a tendency to pass on their school experiences. If they were unpleasant or did not require the skills we demand today, the message that reaches impressionable boys is that it isn't necessary to acquire these skills. After all, they all know someone who has been successful with a limited education. What has changed in high schools across the country is the raising of academic expectations to ready students for an ever - changing world. Clearly the girls as a whole have embraced this paradigm shift much more readily than the boys have. If we want to raise the academic performance of all students, and in particular males, we have to create a culture of lifelong learning for all students."

Welcome

Hello! My name is Mr. Smith and I would like to welcome you to the study of United States History! This will be fun and exciting as well as challenging and time consuming. Historical analysis is done through a variety of lenses, most historians believe twenty years is a minimum time frame to allow "the dust to settle" and study an issue from a historical perspective. But as you will learn this year, we will look at current events as well as events from the past to try to make sense of them. To be successful in this course, as well as being a productive member of society, means that you need to actively participate in the world you are a part of. This blog will be an integral part of how we will be accomplishing this task.

I will you see soon,

Mr. Smith