Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006

STUDENT AND TEACHER SAFETY ACT OF 2006 -- (House of Representatives - September 19, 2006)

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Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006, H.R. 5295. Although this bill seeks a noble end, protecting our children and their teachers, it gives me pause because it authorizes school systems to strip away student's constitutional rights.

All children should feel safe at school. All teachers should be secure while carrying out their mission of teaching our children. We all agree on this. However laudable these goals of safety and security may be, they should not be sought at the expense of the rights of our children.

School is not only a place where children learn math, reading, and writing.School is also a place where children learn how to be citizens in a free society. Being a citizen of this country means living free from the fear of unnecessary searches and government harassment. My fear is that when we expose our children to constant violations of their privacy through limitless drug tests and unreasonable searches during their school years, they will grow up to believe that violations of their constitutional rights are the norm in our country. The future generations that we will depend on to defend the Bill of the Rights may no longer know what those rights are. They may be all too willing to accept ever-increasing government intrusion into their private lives. In an age of warrant-less wiretaps and secret surveillance, this is not a risk I am willing to take.

In addition, this bill does not adequately protect the privacy interests of our students. In 1969, the Supreme Court said that children do not leave their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door. Yet this bill is so vaguely and broadly worded that it potentially opens a ``Pandora's Box'' of 4th Amendment violations in our schools. This bill does not require that school officials actually suspect an individual of wrongdoing before searching them. Rather, it allows for searches if a school official thinks that his or her actions will help the school remain drug free.

I am worried that this bill will lead to instances similar to what happened in Goose Creek, South Carolina in November of 2003. School officials in Goose Creek suspected that a student was dealing drugs in the high school.

They then subjected 150 students to a police raid, and drug dogs going through student's backpacks. The searches occurred despite the fact that the suspected drug dealer was absent from school on that day. Not surprisingly, no drugs were found. Unfortunately, 150 students were humiliated by the school officials that are supposed to guide them on their journey to adulthood.

School safety is a vitally important issue. Children must be able to learn in an environment free from fear and violence. Providing students and teachers with safe schools does not require students to check their civil liberties at the door. The Bill of Rights envisions a balance between individual freedoms and law enforcement. That balance has served our country well for more than two centuries. There is no reason that such a balance cannot be struck in our school system. If we want safe schools we should invest in afterschool and mentoring programs. We should invest in programs that teach children how to resolve conflicts in non-violent ways. We should teach our children that they have privacy rights that follow them wherever they go, including to school. I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill.

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