Teacher Punished for Telling Students About Constitutional Rights

Teacher Punished for Telling Students About Constitutional Rights
By Todd Starnes
Fox News
May 29, 2013

An Illinois high school teacher was punished by a local school district after he warned students about the Constitutional rights before answering a school-mandated survey about emotional and at-risk behavior.

John Dryden, a social studies teacher at Batavia High School, was issued a formal reprimand and docked a day’s pay. The punishment was doled out during a closed-door school board meeting.

The controversy started when the school district directed students to complete a survey about at-risk behavior – including past drug, tobacco and alcohol usage.

“I advised my students that they had a Fifth Amendment right not incriminate themselves,” Dryden told a local newspaper. “It was not my intention for them not to take the survey.”

Batavia School Superintendent Jack Barshinger told Fox News what the teacher did was against the rules.

“The issue before the board was whether one employee had the right to mischaracterize the efforts of teachers, counselors, social workers and others and tell students in effect that the adults are not here to help but they are trying to get you to incriminate yourself,” he said.

But Dryden said several questions on the 34-page survey asked students to self-report what could potentially be criminal behavior.

“I’m not here to stir the pot,” Dryden said. “I’m just trying to protect my kids.”

Barshinger told Fox News that school rules protect students from self-incrimination.

“It is not possible for a student to incriminate himself in a school setting that would make him eligible for any police action,” he said.

And while the superintendent said students “absolutely” have constitutional rights – he said there is a caveat.

“Unfortunately, it is how they are applied in a school setting,” he said. “The Fifth Amendment – you don’t typically hear about in a school setting. That’s because the law has already been set that don’t allow students to self incriminate.”

[Maura Larkins' comment: What law is it that? And why did Barshinger say above that it was "school rules" that protected from self-incrimination? In fact, many adults who work in schools have hostile feelings toward certain kids, and go out of their way to get kids suspended or expelled. Also, they often call in the police.]

He also said parents and students were given the opportunity to opt-out of the survey.

[Maura Larkins' comment: If they had the right to opt out, then what's all the fuss about? Basically, that's what the teacher was telling them, only he gave them a civics lesson at the same time.]

Nearly 100 students, former students and colleagues turned out at the school board meeting to show their support for the embattled teacher. A Facebook petition generated nearly 6,000 signatures for the 20-year veteran teacher.

“He is able to break through student apathy like no other teacher I know,” fellow teacher Scott Bayer told a local newspaper.

Supreme Court to school authorities who did strip search: kids get to keep their clothes on

Due to my personal experiences at Chula Vista Elementary School District and what I have learned of other districts, I have long believed that teachers and administrators desperately need to brush up on the American Constitution.

It's a problem when those tasked with teaching American values show so much disrespect toward those values.


Supreme Court rules school's strip search of teen Savana Redding unconstitutional
BY James Gordon Meek
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
June 25th 2009
Wilson/Getty

Savana Redding leaves the U.S. Supreme Court after her case was heard April 21, 2009. The Supreme Court ruled today that a strip search performed on her in the 8th grade was unconstitutional.


WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a strip search of a 13-year-old schoolgirl by administrators looking for banned medication was unconstitutional.

The high court held in the 8 to 1 opinion that a male assistant school principal in Arizona and a female nurse violated student Savanna Redding's rights when they ordered her to partially undress in a fruitless search for a tiny amount of Ibuprofen pain relief pills.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented in the "regrettable decision" by the majority, reveling in the details of the teen drama.

The conservative justice even questioned whether Redding was really strip-searched - arguing that the term is reserved for those required "to fully disrobe in view of officials."

"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," soon-to-retire moderate Justice David Souter wrote in the majority opinion.

The justices described how the Safford Middle School official, Kerry Wilson, told Redding to "pull her bra out and shake it, and to pull out the elastic on her underpants, thus exposing her breasts and pelvic area."

The search - prompted by schoolmates who ratted Redding out as a pill pusher - came up empty.

But the 'tween girl, who had described standing exposed before the school administrators as "humiliating," felt vindicated.

"I'm pretty excited about it, because that's what I wanted," Redding told the Associated Press. "I wanted to keep it from happening to anybody else."

Liberal-leaning Justice John Paul Stevens said Redding's forced nudity - even if partial - was "outrageous conduct."

"I have long believed that it does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some magnitude," Stevens wrote.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/06/25/2009-06-25_supreme_court_rules_schools_strip_search_of_teen_savana_redding_unconstitutional.html#ixzz0JTnPWUQe&C