Kansas district seeks dismissal of suit alleging student strip search

According to Fox 4 News reported on fox4kc.com, the Turner School District (TSD) has filed a motion in federal court to dismiss a suit brought by the mother of a female student who claims she was wrongfully strip-searched. Amanda Sandidge’s mother charges that school officials forced her daughter to lift her shirt and bra up, exposing herself after another student  falsely accused her daughter of having drugs at high school in December 2011.

Sandidge claims her daughter was threatened and coerced to prove her innocence by exposing herself to the school nurse and a vice principal. “If she did not submit to exposing herself to them, they would take her out of school in handcuffs, and because it was a Friday, she would not see a judge until Monday to be released,” she says. Sandidge says that because of the experience, her daughter has not returned to school and will only leave the house for counseling.

TSD’s superintendent says the district has a policy prohibiting strip-searches by school officials and says that at no time was the girl asked to, nor did she remove any clothing other than her shoes. The suit is seeking more than $75,000 in damages. The attorney representing the Sandidges says he does not expect the judge to rule for a few months on whether to dismiss the suit or not.

Source:  Fox4kc.com, 8/6/12, By Macradee Aegerter

[Editor's Note: In August 2012, Legal Clips summarized an article in The Inquirer, which reported that the Philadelphia School District had agreed to pay $35,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging that a male police officer at Harding Middle School inappropriately touched the chest of a 13-year-old girl during a weapons pat-down.

In February 2012, Legal Clips summarized an Associated Press story on ABC News, which reported that a student at a Georgia middle school had filed suit alleging he was brought to a vice principal’s office and was forced to strip in front of classmates who said he had marijuana.]

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