Ten years ago, the deadliest shooting in American history occurred at Virginia Tech. The news of such a shooting occurring at a known safe place—school—was shocking. In 2017, news of school shootings, however appalling they may still be, are more commonplace than they used to be. A question arises out of this: Are schools doing enough to protect their students?

In Mr. Burba’s Adv. Political Science class, we have been studying privacy in schools relative to where it begins and ends. The Supreme Court has decided that privacy in school ends when the privacy of one student interferes with the safety of their peers. Our class came to a consensus very similar—we think that the amount of privacy right now in schools is enough. We believe that the best way to counteract violent situations, such as school shootings, is to stop them before they even occur. Searches based on probable cause are justifiable, along with the ability to have police inside of schools. The possible positive benefits that the school could have from searching a student suspected to have contraband or weapons outweigh the negative disciplinary consequences that the victim of the search may encounter.

An act that is majorly criticized for going too far and violating privacy acts is the use of random searches in schools. While it is understandable that some may feel like their personal privacy is being invaded, these searches should not be of major importance if you are not violating school rules in the first place. As long as you are innocent and do not have any contraband on you, a random search should not be of concern. Also, school officials must have reasonable suspicion that something bad and against school policy is taking place in order to search you, according to the law. The victim of the search, no matter their innocence, in this situation needs to remember that the school is doing searches to ensure the safety of the school as a whole. Small sacrifices need to be made in order to keep a school safe, and a conduction of a search is one.

Overall, privacy in schools is limited, along with students’ fourth amendment rights, but for good reason. In order to stop school shootings from being as commonplace as they are now, privacy needs to be violated in some capacity. Our current policy provides this. Disciplinary action against one student is a small price to pay if it ends up saving lives or making the school a safer environment in general. The amount of privacy right now in schools is completely reasonable.