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School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

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Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#21

Post by teddyh »

iron2disulfide wrote: post #13
carom wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost got kicked out of school over a computer related issue. I refused to admit to it and they threatened to call the police. It honestly would have been preferable as the police have due process. Kids reading this, don't give them a confession, police or school admins, take the 5th. Don't Talk to the Police - https://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE They want to take your money or put you in a cage.

I almost got kicked out because I "looked like" someone who had vandalized something or other the day before. They pulled me out of class, called me names, made me sit in their little sad office (thus missing more class) and tried to get me to write a written confession. I refused and they said they would "prosecute me to the full extent of the law". The next day I was exonerated with no explanation given. The two fu…

> One wonders why!

I would actually wonder why, since from what I hear, what you describe is the standard tactic for police. It gets confessions, so they do it.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#22

Post by mlyle »

Someone1234 wrote: post #16

Let me provide a common hypothetical: - A student is being bullied. This bullying is happening using social media and or text messages. These messages are being sent at various times pseudo-anonymously but there's strong reason to know who it is. Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this? Is it the police? Using what law/powers? Are social workers empowered? We're clearly not ok with the school d…

It's really hard, right?

Courts have held that schools have a lower threshold to justify a search, due to the need to maintain a safe environment that is conducive to learning.

Schools don't really want to be involved in the outside-school life of their students. But what happens on phones, etc, between students outside school hours absolutely affects the learning environment and how events at school should be interpreted.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#23

Post by mlyle »

dbrueck wrote: post #7
lightedman wrote: post #4

Send them back with a legal-looking note "I paid for this phone, legally it is mine and not the child's. As you are a government institution, any request to view it either comes with a warrant, or pre-reading payment of $1,000,000 for every character in the message which you intend to read. Your receipt and acknowledgement of this letter counts as a binding agreement to these terms." If they want to play a foolish ga…

I really like this because it cuts to the heart of the matter of somebody at that school deeply misunderstanding the limits of their authority, and having it thrown back at them could help them learn, or at least be an amusing way to deal with the situation.

The exact limits of a public school's authority to search mobile devices, to handle events that have partially occurred outside school, has not been established.

Here's a nice summary:

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1159120.pdf

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#24

Post by drekk »

ivraatiems wrote: post #3

American schools are so authoritarian, it's no wonder we are having such a problem preserving faith in our system of democracy in the United States. In public schools, the word of unelected random adults is law, the rules are completely arbitrary, students have no right to privacy, no freedom of movement, sometimes not even control over how they dress or who they speak to. If an American public school was a country,…

What democracy exists in the US? You don't vote for your president. The preferences of the American public have a statistically insignificant effect on which legislative policies get passed. Popular suffrage has existed in the country for ~50 years since indigenous women got the vote. Do I even have to get into what total lack of privacy we enjoy in the "free world"? Come on.

I'm tired of Americans comparing anything bad to their geopolitical enemies, especially when Putin was backed by the CIA and MI6 as a useful wedge against communism. You don't get to fuck up the entire world with aggressive state interventions and then act like you're some bastion of democracy. Ask a Chilean what they think about US democracy. Or really anyone for that matter.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#25

Post by JumpCrisscross »

djbusby wrote: post #18
tomrod wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this? Parents, typically? Police once it becomes harassment or assault (or threat of).

Parents are not reliable. It's an unpleasant experience asking another parent to tell their kid to stop bullying your kid...and then being told "fuck you".

> It's an unpleasant experience asking another parent to tell their kid to stop bullying your kid...and then being told "fuck you"

Then police.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#26

Post by josephcsible »

Someone1234 wrote: post #16

Let me provide a common hypothetical: - A student is being bullied. This bullying is happening using social media and or text messages. These messages are being sent at various times pseudo-anonymously but there's strong reason to know who it is. Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this? Is it the police? Using what law/powers? Are social workers empowered? We're clearly not ok with the school d…

Consider a slightly modified hypothetical: What if the bully were homeschooled or a high school dropout (with the victim still in public school)? If your answer is anything but the victim's school, then that answer applies to your original hypothetical too. If your answer is the victim's school, then you're saying that public schools can search anyone's phones (rather than just their own students' phones, which was bad enough) without a warrant just because they're accused of bullying one of their students.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#27

Post by politician »

mlyle wrote: post #22
Someone1234 wrote: post #16

Let me provide a common hypothetical: - A student is being bullied. This bullying is happening using social media and or text messages. These messages are being sent at various times pseudo-anonymously but there's strong reason to know who it is. Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this? Is it the police? Using what law/powers? Are social workers empowered? We're clearly not ok with the school d…

It's really hard, right? Courts have held that schools have a lower threshold to justify a search, due to the need to maintain a safe environment that is conducive to learning. Schools don't really want to be involved in the outside-school life of their students. But what happens on phones, etc, between students outside school hours absolutely affects the learning environment and how events at school should be interp…

What about the things that happen between children outside their homes, like at a neighborhood park? Would that not meet the vague “standard” of affecting the learning environment at the school? What about what happens in the home? Do they have jurisdiction there too?

Maybe schools should mind their own business instead of becoming totalitarian states that use permissive precedents to dig into everyone’s business.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#28

Post by mlyle »

josephcsible wrote: post #26
Someone1234 wrote: post #16

Let me provide a common hypothetical: - A student is being bullied. This bullying is happening using social media and or text messages. These messages are being sent at various times pseudo-anonymously but there's strong reason to know who it is. Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this? Is it the police? Using what law/powers? Are social workers empowered? We're clearly not ok with the school d…

Consider a slightly modified hypothetical: What if the bully were homeschooled or a high school dropout (with the victim still in public school)? If your answer is anything but the victim's school, then that answer applies to your original hypothetical too. If your answer is the victim's school, then you're saying that public schools can search anyone's phones (rather than just their own students' phones, which was b…

> What if the bully were homeschooled or a high school dropout (with the victim still in public school)?

Pure cyberbullying can be pretty bad, but it's even worse when they're in your school, and you're forced to interact with them in that regard... and they can mess with you with no oversight outside school (and deniably).

For the most part, schools would rather not try and adjudicate things that happen outside school. But the reasonable interpretation of events between students, and the most reliable remedies, can be very different based on context from outside school.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#29

Post by tomrod »

imapeopleperson wrote: post #20
tomrod wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this? Parents, typically? Police once it becomes harassment or assault (or threat of).

Bullying is harassment

> https://www.stopbullying.gov/

Sometimes overlaps (probably often)

But bullying can also just be being a jerk, it doesn't always fall under harassment laws.

Re: School demands search of text messaging, outside of school

#30

Post by naet »

Someone1234 wrote: post #16

Let me provide a common hypothetical: - A student is being bullied. This bullying is happening using social media and or text messages. These messages are being sent at various times pseudo-anonymously but there's strong reason to know who it is. Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this? Is it the police? Using what law/powers? Are social workers empowered? We're clearly not ok with the school d…

There was a court case that a family member of mine was involved in as a legal assistant, where a local high school found out a group of three kids had been operating an inappropriate instagram account targeting other students (all black) with things like photoshopped nooses around their necks, photoshopping pictures of the students into monkeys, and lots of horrible comments etc. Obviously this made the targeted students feel extremely unsafe with an anonymous account posting their photos online in this somewhat threatening way. Eventually somehow it came out who was behind the account and they were all removed from the school.

The case was about one of the expelled students, their family lawyer arguing that they shouldn't have this incident on their student record because it occurred outside of school. I can't remember if they won the case or not, but the issue is complicated. When there is an issue between two students who only know each other from school, it can become a school issue whether it originated there or not.

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