DENVER—The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado said Wednesday that school officials who searched students’ mobile phones for incriminating text messages last spring broke the law.
Boulder Valley School District said it supported administrators’ actions during the searches in question at Monarch High School in Louisville.
The ACLU said that on May 24, officials at Monarch asked a student who was suspected of smoking to empty his pockets and backpack. When no cigarettes were found, Assistant Principal Drew Adams asked for the student’s phone, ostensibly so the student couldn’t send text messages in the principal’s office, the ACLU said in a letter to the district Board of Education.
Later, the student and his mother discovered Adams had transcribed text messages on the phone, including some that mentioned marijuana, the ACLU said. The ACLU alleged school officials also interviewed other students, seized their phones and transcribed more text messages.
The ACLU contends school officials violated state and federal laws against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with Colorado laws meant to protect the privacy of telephonic and electronic communications. It asked the school board to direct administrators to stop conducting cell phone searches.
The district said that before school administrators took the phones and transcribed the text messages, they consulted the district’s legal counsel and learned the actions were legal.
“BVSD takes very seriously the civil liberties of each of its more than 28,000 students and weighs those rights carefully against its responsibility to guarantee the safety of all students,” the district said.
The district said it was willing to review its position with ACLU representatives.
