Jacksonville School Officials Are Finding a Suprising Number of Guns in Schools

In only four months of this school year, Jacksonville, Florida school officials have found twelve guns in Jacksonville area schools, according to an article on News4Jax.com. As school administrators indicated, they may address this problem by increasing searches of students including random searches of their backpacks, their lockers, classrooms and school buses. Not long ago, we discussed an extreme case of school officials strip searching a young student when they suspected she had Advil in her possession. We discussed that students do have the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, however that right is qualified somewhat in the school setting. School officials can search students if it is justified and reasonable and the search does not excessively intrude upon the student as a strip search of a young female student to find Advil clearly did.

Based on Constitutional law, school officials generally could have a right to conduct searches in their schools to make sure guns are not brought into the school. However, whether a search of any individual student is Constitutionally legal would depend on the circumstances of the case and the nature of the search.