ACLU protests some cell phone practices
Local schools grapple with new technologies, increased use of phones
By Ryan Want
Colorado Hometown Newspapers
The American Civil Liberties Union last week sent a letter to the Boulder Valley School District board of education contending administrators at Louisville’s Monarch High School committed felonies under Colorado law and violated students’ privacy by seizing their cell phones, reading their text messages and making transcriptions of the messages to place in students’ permanent files.
According to the ACLU’s letter, sent on Wednesday, Oct. 10, the searching and transcribing of students’ text messages violates a Colorado statute that was enacted to protect the privacy of telephone and electronic communications.
That statute makes it a felony to read, copy, or record a telephone or electronic communication without the consent of the sender or receiver.
The ACLU’s letter also explains that searches of cell phones at Monarch High School violate state and federal constitutional provisions that forbid unreasonable searches and seizures.
“The educators at Monarch High School need some education themselves about the law and students’ rights,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU legal director. “They have reportedly told parents that their children have no rights of privacy at school and they have declared that they can search any cell phones and read any text messages they please.”
Many students at Monarch agreed with the ACLU and said they felt school administration crossed the line.
“I think your phone is kind of your own privacy,” said Jordan Leggett, a 17-year-old Monarch senior. “People have compared it to locker searches, but a locker is here on the premises. It’s their property, not yours. But a phone is your property. I think it’s an invasion of privacy to take someone’s phone on some suspicion.”
On May 24, 2007, the school’s security officer detained a then 16-year-old sophomore student who was accused of smoking in a parking lot.
The security guard delivered the student to the office of Drew Adams, assistant principal of Monarch High School.
Adams had the student empty his pockets and backpack, but no cigarettes were found.
According to the ACLU, the search should have ended at that point. However, Adams asked the student to turn over his cell phone.
The student protested, but Adams said it was so the student couldn’t text while detained in the principal’s office. Adams took the cell phone, read the phone’s text messages and found some messages that mentioned marijuana and that he characterized as “incriminating.”
Adams kept the cell phone over the Memorial Day weekend.
When the student’s mother recovered the phone on the following Tuesday, she discovered that Adams had drafted a text message and had tried to send it from her son’s phone to one of her son’s friends, according to the ACLU. The message appeared to be Adams’ attempt to engage the receiving student in a conversation.
Monarch High School authorities followed up with additional interrogations, seizures and searches of other students’ cell phones.
In conjunction with assistant principals Julie Wheeler, Mark Sibley and Principal Barbara Spelman, Adams used the names found in the first students’ text messages to call in more students, interrogate them, seize their cell phones, look through personal text messages and transcribe messages they deemed to be “incriminating,” according to the ACLU.
Silverstein said ACLU officials talked to 13 students the administration had called in and interrogated based on text message information obtained from the confiscated cell phones.
Though, Silverstein said they did not talk to all of the students involved and that he was unsure how far the net of questioning extended.
“The law provides a lot of leeway for administrators to investigate suspected violations of school rules,” Silverstein said. “When administrators have reasonable grounds to suspect that a search will turn up evidence, school principals can search a student’s backpack and can even insist that a student empty his or her pockets. But seizing a student’s cell phone and searching text messages is a much greater intrusion on privacy. Colorado statutes appropriately forbid the text message searches carried out by Monarch administrators and they are also unreasonable searches under the standards of the state and federal constitutions.”
In a press release issued by school district officials on Wednesday, Oct 10, BVSD director of communications Briggs Gamblin said: “The Boulder Valley School District supports the actions taken by Monarch High School administrators during the incident in question. Prior to confiscating the students’ cellular phones and transcribing text messages found on them, Monarch administrators contacted the BVSD Legal Counsel’s office and were told it was indeed legal for them to take the actions that they were then considering.”
The ACLU said the Monarch administration was in violation of the Fourth Amendment which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. In New Jersey v. T.L.O 469 U.S. 325 (1985) the Supreme Court explained that a search and seizure is reasonable only if it is “justified at its inception” and “reasonable in scope.”
The ACLU letter said: “No reasonable person could have believed that extending the search to the cell phone and its text messages would turn up evidence related to cigarette-smoking.”
Regardless of whether Monarch administration is in violation of the Fourth Amendment, Silverstein said that Monarch is still in the wrong.
Under Colorado Revised Statutes 18-9-303 and 18-9-309, a person violates the statute if he or she knowingly manipulates, reads, takes, copies, or records a telephone, telegraph, or electronic communication without the consent of the sender or receiver.
Last February, Douglas County Schools dealt with a similar situation and received complaints after confiscating students’ cell phones and reading messages. Currently, the Douglas County policy counsel is creating a comprehensive cell phone policy.
“Until now, it’s been a building-by-building policy,” said Larry Borland, Douglas County Schools executive director of Safety and Security. “But, because of the proliferation of cell phones, we are currently in the process of creating a district-wide policy.”
In the St. Vrain Valley School District, Erie High School principal Steve Payne said his school’s cell phone policy is geared toward ensuring the phones do not become a distraction.
“Cell phones and iPods, they’re taking over the world and we can’t ignore the fact that they’re here. We can fight it or we can find a way to keep it within reason. The key is that it doesn’t become a safety factor and interfere with the education of students,” Payne said. “We’re not using any information off of them unless a student brings it to us and says they want us to read what a student has written to them. Personally, I wouldn’t take a cell phone and use it, that’s just a personal thing.”
Superintendent orders another look at LMS
Design Advisory Team to re-examine all options 1/23/2008
By Ryan Want
Colorado Hometown Newspapers
Thanks to the persistence of several community members, there is still a chance that the eastern facade of Louisville Middle School will be saved.
Boulder Valley School District Superintendent Chris King announced Friday, Jan. 18, in a letter to Louisville Middle School Design Advisory Team (DAT) members that he is requesting that they reconvene and review the proposed design plan for renovations to the school planned under the 2006 BVSD Bond Program.
King’s decision was prompted by recent community input given to the Boulder Valley Board of Education concerning the proposed demolition of most of the 1939 portion of the Louisville Middle School building.
One of those community members who spoke to the board was Jean Morgan, a Louisville resident of 35 years whose husband taught at the school.
“It's somewhat of an uphill campaign,” Morgan said. “What we did at that meeting — we weren't on the agenda — nine of us spoke on saving the facade. The board encouraged us, said they needed to get more information.”
Community members asked that the board intervene to stop and redirect the project. Instead, King decided to ask the school’s DAT members to reconvene, listen to historic preservation concerns and more closely examine the impacts of preserving the facade and then decide whether to amend their earlier recommendation.
DATs are composed of school community members including faculty, staff, parents, students and community members.
In addition to King’s request to the Louisville Middle School DAT to reconvene, he also asked the project architect to put together detailed cost data related to the historic preservation options considered by the DAT and the architect. The data will also include schedule implications.
With the more detailed information as well as input from the historical preservation community, Dr. King is asking the Louisville Middle School DAT to then review its earlier decision to support a design that does not preserve the eastern facade of the 1939 portion of the building.
Giving Morgan and other community members hope that saving the original facade is a realistic possibility is the renovation of Casey Middle School. Last month, Casey, which will also undergo renovation through the same bond, was granted permission to save the south and west facades of the building. Mainly, Morgan is just hoping that saving the facade is seriously reconsidered.
“I don't want this to be something where they just placate the group. There is a huge ground swell in the community of people wanting to back this project,” Morgan said. “We have to work together to get the job done and get what the community wants and the school needs.”
Dr. King emphasized in his letter that he was not asking for another significant time commitment from the volunteer group. He anticipates that his requested review could be resolved within two to three meetings which should not negatively impact the Louisville Middle School construction schedule. The proposed meeting timeline will be developed in cooperation with the school’s principal, Adam Fels.
“It's always been the entry point into downtown from South Boulder Road,” Morgan said.
Morgan also feels that the facade holds historical significance to the town because it was a WPA project.
“I understand that the building is antiquated,” Morgan said, “but it's a beautiful building. The men of this town have their heart and soul and scars in that building. (The government) gave the men of this town a job to support their families. It would be such a shame to lose it.”
The school’s facade is 69 years old, but in Morgan’s estimation it is quite new compared to other great buildings.
“In Europe, they have the Parthenon and the Coliseum which are much older,” Morgan said. “Certainly we can figure it out.”
