Law Enforcement Officers

1. When creating and implementing student codes of conduct, school authorities should ensure rules and consequences are written clearly and enforced in a nondiscriminatory fashion.2. Every punishment should be paired with procedural due process (notice of violation and punishment, an opportunity to refute charges before an impartial decision maker, and explanation of decision based on evidence).3. The extent of due process provided should increase as the punishments become more severe.4. If a student is expelled, then the school must provide a number of procedural protections (e.g., a full and fair hearing before an impartial adjudicator, with the opportunity to confront and cross-examine witnesses).5. Corporal punishment has not been found to be unconstitutional, but it may be prohibited by state law or local district policy.6. A student’s substantive due process rights are violated if the administration of discipline rises to the level of shocking the conscience.7. Academic sanctions for nonacademic reasons should be reasonable; related to performance, absences, or other academic concerns; and serve a legitimate school purpose.8. Students possess Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches; however, school employees need only reasonable suspicion that a student is violating a school rule or the law to search a student.9. The level of suspicion required increases with the intrusiveness of the search: searches that are highly intrusive must be supported by a greater degree of suspicion.10. A search of a student must be reasonable at its inception and reasonable in scope.11. Student athletes and those involved in extra-curricular activities can be drug tested without reasonable suspicion.12. School personnel should refrain from conducting strip searches or blanket searches of groups of students.13. Questions have been raised about the involvement of law enforcement officers, including