Word: piscataway
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Theodore Choplick, assistant vice principal at Piscataway High School in New Jersey, thought he was doing a reasonable thing. He opened the purse of a 14- year-old girl who had been caught breaking school rules by smoking in the lavatory. The girl denied she had been smoking in the lavatory or that she ever smoked. Choplick figured that the contents of her purse would show whether she was lying. They did. The purse contained cigarettes, marijuana and some notes suggesting that she was selling pot to other students. Choplick called the police...
...Piscataway High, Principal James Koch, proud of the "tight ship" he runs, said that the decision "puts an element of safety and stability back into public schools," without which "no education can take place." At other schools around the country, the judgment brought more applause and, in some states, outright relief. According to Scott Thomson, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, teachers and administrators, uneasy about their rights of search, "have been looking the other way" when they sensed that something wrong was afoot...
...Teachers and principals were more concerned with the decision's effect on day-to-day discipline in the schools. A jubilant Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said of the ruling, "It sends a message to students that school buildings are . . . off premises to troublemakers." Concluded Piscataway Principal Koch: "The rights we have had have been clarified and justified...
...court's test case deals with a Piscataway, N.J., high school assistant vice principal who inspected the purse of a student suspected of smoking cigarettes in a rest room. He found marijuana, which was used as evidence in a drug charge brought against the 14-year-old student. The New Jersey Supreme Court threw out a delinquency verdict against the girl last year, ruling that the drug had been seized illegally. The U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments on the case last spring but declined to rule, will probably act on the issue next term...
...only thing that changed in Piscataway, N.J. yesterday was the margin of the "winning edge...