The Florida Senate

232.256  Search of student locker or storage area; authority.--

(1)  The Legislature finds that the case law of this state provides that relaxed standards of search and seizure apply under the State Constitution to searches of students' effects by school officials, owing to the special relationship between students and school officials and, to a limited degree, the school officials' standing in loco parentis to students. Accordingly, it is the purpose of this section to provide procedures by which school officials may search students' effects within the bounds of the case law established by the courts of this state.

(2)  A principal of a public school or a school employee designated by the principal, if she or he has reasonable suspicion that a prohibited or illegally possessed substance or object is contained within a student's locker or other storage area, may search the locker or storage area.

(3)  The school board shall cause to be posted in each public school, in a place readily seen by students, a notice stating that a student's locker or other storage area is subject to search, upon reasonable suspicion, for prohibited or illegally possessed substances or objects.

(4)  This section shall not be construed to prohibit the use of metal detectors or specially trained animals in the course of a search authorized by subsection (2) or subsection (3).

History.--s. 3, ch. 82-216; s. 1270, ch. 95-147.