Does the school have the right to go through a students

Our schools have an honor code. If you get caught drinking (or other illegal activities) on Saturday, then you still lose your activities like sports, etc. Now as for confiscating a phone, I'm not sure that's really legal.

It's a good question. They can look through their lockers and items in their lockers, so I don't know why a cell phone would be off limits? I don't know that I would be happy about it though.

There have been issues in our school system with pictures that appeared on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, resulting in a suspension from a sports team. The kids were pictured with beer cans in their hands at a weekend party. We have a zero tolerance policy - if you are even at a party with alcohol - you are benched for 6 weeks. You still go to practice and all the games/meets - but you must wear street clothes at the game/meet and sit on the bench. The student athletes are required to sign a code of conduct policy form before they start the season - and if it is violated - boom. Done.

My DS's high school had a thing happening last semester where someone started a Twitter account called "highschoolname starter kit." This account would post a collage of pictures relating to a student and name the student. Some were funny and harmless, a few were not. The account posted pictures of four girls and called it the "[John Smith] Starter Kit." Apparently, the guy got around, told about it, and those four girls were his partners.

The principal pretty much shut it down at that point. I'm not sure how, but within an hour of school starting the next day, the account was GONE. DS isn't even sure what happened. Most of the kids use the school's WiFi on their cell phones, so I think a pretty good case could be made for the school being very alert on what their WiFi is being used for...

Our school also has a clause similar to those above for extracurriculars.

Given your concern, I recommend that you instruct your daughter to evoke her right to have a parent present before answering any questions or surrendering any belongings to school administrators. 

I would have no issue with the school doing that. And most students and parents sign a code of conduct staying that they agree to these types of searches.

Oh, Good God.

Schools are expected to prevent bullying, sexting and other things kids do wrong, so how can they be held accountable if the can't access phones, lockers or other devices.

Too many people expect the schools to be responsible for our childrens behavior when something happens, but they don't want to give up their rights to help the schools.

What is the schools written policy? If, for example, there has been bullying via text messages, social media etc, concerning pupils in the school, then hell, yes, I would expect the school to act and to punish the guilty even if messages were sent out of school hours.

On the one hand I agree with a previous poster that it takes a village, on the other hand it seem like an invasion of privacy if it happened on the weekend.

I'm just thinking of last night's video of me holding the dog pretending to comb one of my daughters hair with his claws.

The answer is actually complicated and unsettled. People have a privacy right in cell phones -- looking through a cell phone is a search, and the Supreme Court has been absolutely clear on that, so that is one thing. The Supreme Court also has been clear that students in public schools enjoy less of a right to privacy than do adults in other settings because schools are what the Court calls a "special needs" environment -- a setting where there are government needs beyond the ordinary needs of law enforcement (to arrest and prosecute people for crimes). For that reason, school officials generally do not need a warrant or probable cause to perform searches, as police officers would if they were searching adults -- they can search based on reasonable suspicion, which is a lower standard of suspicion, and, under some circumstances, they may be able to search without any suspicion (for example, random drug tests for students who participate in athletics or extracurricular activities).

The Supreme Court has not had a case about student cell phone searches specifically. I think that they probably would say that suspicion-based searches of cellphones by school administrators (rather than, for example, police officers assigned to public school campuses) for the purpose of uncovering evidence of things that affect the learning environment would be acceptable. If the searches are suspicion less, or are performed by resource officers rather than school administrators, or are targeted towards uncovering evidence of criminal activity for the purpose of arresting the student, the court would be less likely to say that the searches comport with the Fourth Amendment. Most of the lower court cases that I have seen have involved people bringing civil rights lawsuits (section 1983 suits, if anyone is familiar) based on school punishments that stem from cellphone searches, and because what you need to prove in those cases is something much tougher than "there was a fourth amendment violation here," it is hard to tell much from those cases (often the lower court judge says that the search was terrible and/or unjustified but that qualified immunity protects the administrators or notes that the result for the student was school discipline and that courts almost never second-guess school disciplinary decisions as long as there was an administrative process of some kind).

Anyhow, maybe more information than you need, but there you go. I oppose searching student cellphones for evidence of "bullying" because "bullying" is such a capacious, amorphous, and at this point almost meaningless designation.  For parents who oppose searches for bullying (which are very popular) or cell phone searches generally, you are far better off taking it up with your school administrators and/or school board when they are drafting search policies than waiting until your student gets searched.  Most of the time, policies are put in place with universal parent support, and it is only when parents see the consequences (kids getting suspended from school for posting photos of themselves provocatively licking lollypops, e.g.) that they realize what they have authorized. 

Get a warrant and then your fine. Law enforcement can confiscate a phone but the can not open it or 'force' you to open it without a warrant. If the school tried to 'force' my kid to open their phone without proper procedures being followed I would sue. I'm sure I did not give permission for the school to open my childs phone.

Opening the phone without a warrant could make everything they find inadmissible in court. If it were about bullying cyber or otherwise it could affect the prosecution of the crime.

But in the overwhelming majority of cases, you are not using what you find on a student's cell phone to prosecute them.  You are using it to discipline them at school for a violation of school policy through a process that doesn't offer the same protections as criminal prosecution like suppression of evidence.  It is also pretty clear to me that even if the evidence were entered in a criminal prosecution, the courts would not say school administrators needed a warrant.  Maybe specific suspicion, and maybe a school resource office would need a warrant (even that isn't certain), but probably not a warrant for school administrators.

I am saying this not because I disagree with you in principle.  I am in what I believe is a minority of people who think high school students should enjoy the same constitutional protections against search and seizure that adults do.  But it is clear that they do not.  If you want to avoid student searches, waiting until your student gets searched and then suing is a bad idea.  You are likely to lose.  Where parents have gotten involved beforehand, by seeking to shape the school's search policy before their kids get searched, they have been more successful.  If you oppose cellphone searches, check your school policy and start organizing now.

My child would know to not allow his phone, clothes, etc to be searched w/o his parents being contacted.

FWIW my kids go to a huge school district in the Metro DC area and our Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook clearly names cell phones as one of the things school administrators can search without permission. And that students can be disciplined for behavior that happens outside of school hours, including weekends, if the behavior impacts the school and / or students in a negative way.

I just looked it up because it is online, as should most everyone's who is participating in this thread.