Third grade students strip searched!

Third graders strip-searched over lost $5

Reuters
Posted March 21 2002, 3:45 PM EST

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A school principal and a teacher were ordered to stay home from school Thursday after a class of third graders were strip-searched when $5 in lunch money went missing.

The money did not turn up in Monday's search of the 26 students, who were between 8 and 9 years of age.











``There was a strip search. The kids were asked to take off their clothes. The female teacher searched the girls and the male teacher the boys,'' Kansas City School District spokesman Edwin Birch said.

Pitcher Elementary School Principal Jana Schwimmer and an unnamed teacher were ordered to stay away from work, though not officially suspended, pending an investigation of the incident, Birch said. It was not clear why both teachers were not removed.

Under Missouri rules, schoolchildren can be ordered to empty their pockets but not strip-searched.




Copyright Â[emoji]169[/emoji] 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

That is infuriating!

This is outrageous, but unfortunately not the first time something like this has happened in KC. I lived there for awhile, and a friend of mine told me about it. These kids have been strip searched, arbitrarily removed from parents, and a full spectrum of ridicilous incidents. I was so glad I didn't have to send my daughter to school there. My friend's child, who was abducted and horribly abused by a babysitter, thus very fragile, was taken into police custody for having a bruise.This poor child was not told why she was being taken to the police station, and she was terrified! She thought she had done something wrong as was being arrested! She was also suspended from school for referring to a black child as "boy". Both kids were 8 years old at the time. When the mother was told that this was considerd to be a racial slur, she pointed to the signs on the rest rooms that read "girls" and "boys". They didn't know what to say about that. She finally moved to a smaller town in the suburbs of KC so her child could attend school in peace.

What in the hell were those teachers thinking???? Strip search 8 year olds??? They should have been fired on the spot! Being a former teacher, I fully realize that students do give up certain rights when they go to school (right to privacy, right to free speech), but that absolutely crosses the line.

From what Krazy Kat said, it sounds like that whole district needs a major overhaul.

I can't believe that! I mean COME ON!!! Over $5???? That is ridiculous. I feel sorry for those boys and girls that they were personally invaded by their teachers.

That is awful!!!!!! And just because of 5 bucks!!!! If that had been my child I would have raised you-know-what!!!!!!!!!!

I'd be livid if someone did that to my kid! I'd have their job and their *alls, because they must have some big ones to think that was a reasonable reaction!

Val, the fact that kids DO give up rights to be in school, and yet are required by law to be there, is very frustrating for me. It's part of why I originally planned to homeschool.

They're darn lucky my kid wasn't in that class...

Those teachers must have been nuts! Schools are getting wierder, all over, though. We have a case, here, that has me PO'd. A high school teacher was threatened by a six-foot-two, two hundred pound student athlete, who punched through a window. The school authorities did nothing so, the teacher got a restraining order, keeping the kid 25 feet away from him. The school's governing board recommended that the teacher's contract not be renewed. This was overruled, by the superintendent. Today, the school board suspended the teacher (with pay), accusing him of racially-motivated persecution, of the kid. They couldn't get the teacher, through normal channels so, now they're playing the race card. I expect to see Jesse Jackson and Johnny Cochran intown, any day,now. I hope the teacher sues the pants off the school district. The student has a long record of assaults, etc. No wonder there is a teacher shortage. I wouldn't do it, without combat pay.

Shocked...

Haven't we gone too far as a society when something like this occurs? What else are we going to subject our youth to?