Posted on 03/21/2002 6:26:53 PM PST by moyden
Principal, teacher removed from Pitcher Elementary while district investigates alleged strip search
By JOE ROBERTSON and DEANN SMITH The Kansas City Star
The principal and a teacher have been removed from Pitcher Elementary School while the Kansas City School District investigates allegations that third-graders were subjected to an improper search, district spokesman Edwin Birch said today.
The principal is Jana Schwimmer. The teacher was not identified.
Parents and students at Pitcher met this morning with a state investigator and school district attorneys to discuss the alleged strip search over $5 of missing money.
"The district has to investigate these allegations," Birch said. "We wanted to reassure them (the parents and students) that we want to do the right thing."
The state also must investigate, he said, which is why an investigator with the Missouri Division of Family Services joined the meeting.
Parents have complained that children told them earlier this week that boys had to drop their pants to be searched by an adult male, while girls were searched by other girls.
District policy does not allow strip searches and specifies that any other search cannot be done in front of other students.
Superintendent Bernard Taylor Jr. hired Schwimmer as principal at Pitcher last summer. Taylor and district attorneys briefed school board members about the incident in a closed session Tuesday.
Taylor sent letters home to some Pitcher parents Tuesday, saying that investigators may ask to talk to their children to get eyewitness accounts of a "disturbing report that students...may have been subjected to an improper search of their persons."
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has no policy on strip searches and instead allows local school boards to set their own policies, said Kris Morrow, an attorney for the department.
"If a district is even thinking of doing a strip search, we tell them to be sure and contact their school district attorney," Morrow said. "Because of the invasive nature of the search, strip searches can be a litigation mine field."
This, I know. What gets me is the logic behind having the kids search each other's underwear. I mean, even if you look past the Teacher initiated game of doctor, how would you trust every child to tell if they did find the money? Also, I have yet to meet a 8 year old crafty enough to stash money in their "nether region".
And I cancelled my subscription to the KC (Red) Star. I almost cancelled after they canned Linda Bowles. Then I almost cancelled after Louis Diugiud's historically inaccurate rant about "Radical Republicans". And then they outed Father Thom Savage, unnecessarily. That put me over the top. So I don't get the KC (Red) Star to read anymore.
So the only way I even heard about this was on the top of the hour news reports. The first public school teacher who even THINKS of doing this to my child will get personally "pantsed" by me.
And I'm with you, Troutstalker. The WSJ is a much better grade of paper, anyway you judge it. And I point out the articles about resisting governmental intrusion to my children on a regular basis. My children, I hope, would resist these Gestapo tactics. fsf
Barns or woodsheds. Either will work just fine. Suggest we start with the schoolboards and work down to the teachers.
It's a telling situation. We have
a Church chock full of pedophiles,
educrat pedophiles, and, yet, who
gets busted and vilified? Some
social misfit with nasty pictures
at home on his computer.
Oh, and milk cartons with pictures
of kids mostly involved in partental
rights disputes to keep us terrified
and the system in place. Hoorah.
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