An attempt to change school policy related to student searches fell short Monday night in Lehighton Area School District.

David Bradley made a motion, which ultimately failed 5-4, for the first reading of a policy change that would require searches of a student only be done by a member of the same sex and only after notification of a parent.

Bradley, Joy Beers, Gail Maholick and Richard Beltz voted for the change, while Larry Stern, Rita Spinelli, Stephen Holland, Wayne Wentz and Andrew Yenser dissented.

“If my son or daughter comes to school with something on their person and gets called to the office, they can’t protect my child from harm or from harming someone else until they get ahold of myself or my wife?” Yenser asked. “I don’t know anyone who would want to put their child or any other child in the school in that situation. You’re losing sight of the safety of the children of this district to move your own agenda forward.”

According to Bradley, his agenda is for students to have “the same rights they have on the street, in the library or at the park.”

Bradley referred to a discussion from the June board meeting, when Fred Kemmerer Jr. alleged his son was “strip-searched” at the high school.

“As a parent, you feel helpless,” Kemmerer said at the time.

“I did a lot of studying and found this is actually something that is allowed to happen. Our kids could go to school and, at any moment, be strip-searched based on allegations.”

Kemmerer defined a strip search as having any article of clothing removed during the search.

“This district is supposed to act in place of the parent,” Bradley said Monday night. “If I’m not mistaken, every parent would want to know what is going on with their child before someone decides to remove an article of clothing. What you have now is one student can make a complaint of another student, and that student is now in the office with his clothes being taken off.”

Yenser said the situation Bradley described has not occurred in the district.

“That is your opinion,” he told Bradley.

Earlier in the meeting, a proposed policy change to read, “no student or member of the public will be searched without first meeting the legal limits of probable cause, and being given a Miranda warning,” also failed 5-4.

“With our current procedure, we are able to work with local law enforcement and our school police officers to assist them and bring individuals to justice,” Cleaver said. “Changing that could put this district, staff and entire educational community at risk.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania Students’ Rights handbook, authorities can search a locker and desk without reasonable suspicion if they tell the person ahead of time and allow them to be there during the search.

They can search a locker without telling the person ahead of time only if there is a reasonable suspicion that the locker holds material that threatens the health, welfare and safety of students in the school.

A search of a student’s person can be conducted if the school reasonably suspects that a student is hiding items that pose a threat to other students under their clothes on their bodies, and there is no less intrusive way to search.