OXNARD : Pat-Down Search of Students Allowed
Oxnard Union High School board members will permit administrators to pat down students suspected of harboring contraband as part of a locker search policy revised Wednesday night.
The pat-downs are not related to the board’s proposal last September that students be subject to strip-searches, officials said.
“We deep-sixed that,” board President Steve Stocks said of the strip-search proposal. That policy would have included asking students to lift their shirts.
But school administrators have frequently “had pat-down kinds of searches. The ‘please empty your pocket’ kind of thing,” Stocks said.
Pat-downs must be conducted by a person of the same gender and before another adult witness, the policy says.
The revised locker policy also prohibits drug paraphernalia and other items threatening the health or safety of students, said Assistant Supt. Gary Davis.
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