Are random drug searches legal in high schools in california

[d3crypt]

Does anyone know?

[synthesis]

Do you mean in the sense of "could it legally happen" or "it has happened and I want to know if it's legal"? It would help to know as many details as possible while also not revealing any personal information. (Obviously the latter is the first priority; even generalized information can screw you over if you're not careful.)

[Sasha]

I would ask the ACLU if I was you

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I would ask the ACLU if I was you

Suing the popo is their bread and butter, so they generally know, in some detail, laws that the cops break frequently.

[d3crypt]

It has happened. They pulled entire classes out of rooms and let drug dogs sniff people backpacks while we stood in the hall. They did it many times though.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

as a minor in the US you have no rights in that sense at school. that shit happened when I was in high school ten years ago. leave your green at home.

[Red Commissar]

I can't speak for California but in Texas it is permissible with the use of drug sniffing dogs. When I was young I remember around middle-school they started coming into the schools to conduct searches, and were allowed to search lockers because ultimately these were the school's property, not the student.

When we became older this changed, since we were now allowed to bring backpacks into class, so students used lockers a lot less (I never used my assigned locker for my junior and senior years). In that event the search could not be random, and they would either have to do it for everyone or ask the person for permission. In the later, they had to form reasonable grounds to go through with a search, and this could be gained from using a search dog.

As far as I can remember though, they only had the dogs go around in passing periods. I don't recall them having to empty out a class in progress for this, but I know it has happened in some other schools. Drug testing I'm not aware of beyond athletes, but I don't think this has been concretely established one way or another.

Texas puts their guidelines guidelines (https://www.oag.state.tx.us/ag_publications/pdfs/schoolcrime_2010.pdf) online for searches, which you can see on page 52 and onwards. California'll likely have the same. Texas basically has the position that outside of a locker search, that a search can only be conducted if there are reasonable grounds. The school employee or police in question can get this from the student's history or from a drug dog getting alerted.

Honestly though it's better to keep this stuff off campus. Even if one finds a way around it, they'll get the ire of the school administration and that'll likely follow them for a long time and cause problems, not to mention the shit it might case in rumor mills among students themselves. There's a lot of ways this can blow up in someone's face even if they manage to come out having taken down the school for violating their privacy.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

This issue was my first brush with politics. When I was a sophomore my high school began implementing 'random' searches of people and lockers. We organized student meetings about it and eventually managed to get the majority of the school to walkout over the issue. Ultimately though the administration didn't budge an inch on the issue and managed to break up the whole thing with enough suspensions and expulsions. I changed high schools the next year anyhow, but the lesson I took from it was that students just don't have any rights while at school. The whole thing just made school feel more like a prison and was one more reason to drop out as soon as I turned 18. Good luck with your situation