Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006
STUDENT AND TEACHER SAFETY ACT OF 2006 -- (House of Representatives - September 19, 2006)
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Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the ranking member for yielding.
I rise in strong support of the expressed intent and expressed purpose of this legislation. But as one who taught for 6 years in probably one of the toughest schools and one of the toughest communities in the country, I have some serious reservations about what this legislation actually does. And I guess my reservations are not unfounded, because I find that the American Association of School Administrators, the National School Boards Association, the Council of Great City Schools, Parent Teachers Association, American Civil Liberties Union, the American Federation of Teachers, and of course my own school district, one of the largest in the Nation, the City of Chicago School System, has some concerns. And many of the concerns expressed is that the legislation is unnecessary, because many school districts already have policies on search that take into consideration State laws and State court decisions. They are concerned that it overrides local and State policies on school searches, and that it establishes one-size-fits-all, although all of us know that circumstances in different locations and locales are very different.
It sends a confusing message to schools on what legal standards are, and it establishes a policy that gives teachers authority to conduct searches when authority for determining who could search should rest with the school board. And, of course, it penalizes schools inappropriately for noncompliance by withholding safe and drug free funds, even though not all school districts receive these funds.
So, Mr. Speaker, while the intent is good, and while all of us want to see our schools be the safe and secure places we know that they need to be, I find this legislation to be duplicative, unnecessary, and that it takes away in some instances rights that should be reserved certainly for local communities to make determinations about. For that reason, I oppose this legislation.
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