Parent alleges repeated classroom searches at Tecumseh High violate students' Fourth Amendment rights

At the public-comment portion of the meeting, parent Matt Durham told the Tecumseh Board of Education that his daughter and other students had been subject to multiple blanket classroom searches for cell phones this school year and that the practice appears to violate the district’s board policy and students’ constitutional rights.

Durham said the searches had interrupted classes three times this school year and that only on one occasion did staff recover a cell phone. He cited Tecumseh Public Schools board policy 5103, which he paraphrased as requiring "reasonable suspicion" that a search will find evidence of violation of law, policy or rules. Durham also referenced guidance on reasonable-suspicion searches from the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals and noted a 2009 case in which the Detroit public schools were sued by the ACLU over similar practices.

"Blanket checks of classrooms do not fall under the guidance of reasonable suspicion, and it certainly isn't justified in its scope," Durham told trustees. He asked the board to take the matter seriously and "put an immediate end to these unconstitutional searches." The transcript does not record a formal staff or board response to the allegation during the meeting; the item was heard as public comment.

The transcript shows the allegation and the policy citation; the board did not vote or immediately announce a follow-up action on this allegation during the session. Trustees later discussed facility and budget items but did not publicly resolve the search complaint at that meeting.