Eighth-grade student strip-searched over vape pen at Ohio school, mom says in lawsuit
The mother of an eighth-grade student sued an Ohio school district after her daughter was strip-searched over a vape pen, according to the lawsuit.
When the eighth-grade girl arrived at Eastlake Middle School in Lake County on Sept. 7, another student approached the girl, asking if she wanted to smoke a new vape pen, the girl’s mother said in a lawsuit. The girl declined, but “begrudgingly” allowed the other student to leave the vape pen in her locker, the complaint said.
Hours later, the girl was pulled from class and questioned about a vape pen, according to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio on Dec. 28. She “was honest” about what happened with the vape pen, the lawsuit stated.
The Willoughby-Eastlake City Schools Board of Education told McClatchy News “the administration met with the parents to promptly address the situation” after it occurred, but had no “further comment on the underlying allegations.”
School officials searched the girl’s lockers and found nothing so they took her to a nurse’s aide to be strip-searched, the complaint said. The aide had reportedly not been trained on what to do but conducted the search anyway.
The strip search also found nothing, and afterward, the girl was suspended, her mom said in the complaint.
School officials acknowledged the strip search was “inappropriate,” the lawsuit said. The complaint filed against the Willoughby-Eastlake City Schools Board of Education and school employees involved in the incident argued school officials violated multiple of the girl’s constitutional rights.
“Students do not check their constitutional rights at the door when they walk into school,” Jared Klebanow, the attorney representing the student’s mother, told McClatchy News. “Subjecting a teenage girl to a strip search over an object which posed no threat of violence to students or staff was unreasonable and in violation of her civil rights.”
Lake County is northeast of Cleveland.
This story was originally published January 6, 2023 at 10:43 AM with the headline "Eighth-grade student strip-searched over vape pen at Ohio school, mom says in lawsuit."
