Eric Roberts had no problem when he learned last week that his 12-year-old daughter would be suspended from Westview Middle School for failing to store her cell phone properly. It was the reality that officials at the Berkeley County school could seize the phone and keep it until the end of the academic year that upset him.

“I pay for that phone for my daughter for a reason, so I can get a hold of her when I need her or in case of emergencies,” he said. “So I went to the school and asked to have my property returned to me.”

No dice.

Roberts asked the school secretary, vice principal and principal, and all said it wasn’t possible, that rules are rules. They then proceeded to show him a rule book that said they have the right to keep his property.

Indeed, the Westview Middle School 2009-10 Student Handbook includes the following awkwardly worded section regarding cell phones and electronic devices:

Students are permitted to have a cell phone at school given the following rules adhered to:
• Cell phones and electronic devices must be turned off during school hours (8:00 a.m. - 3:37 p.m.);
• Cell phones and electronic devices cannot to be visible or displayed

Consequences for inappropriate use of the cell phone are indicated below:
• Warning, call to parent to pick up the cell phone / conference with administrator about board policy and consequences.
• If there is a second infraction, one day (Out of School Suspension) and cell phone or communication device will not be returned until the last day of school.

Roberts, an electrical engineer who lives in Goose Creek, said he was stunned by what he perceived as the lack of due process.

“Maybe my daughter doesn’t deserve Fourth Amendment rights,” Roberts said. “Maybe property rights really don’t mean anything. Hell, I don't know anything about the law. What I do know is that I’m sick and tired of having government tell me what to do all the time. I’m sick of the apathy of people in general telling me, ‘oh, just let it go’ ... yeah, what’s a little evisceration of civil liberties among friends.”

Neither Westview Principal Jerome Davis nor representatives from Berkeley County School District could be reached for comment.

The problem began last week, when Roberts’ daughter, a sixth-grader, got off the bus with her cell phone in her pocket and forgot about it.

“Knowing the rule and not wanting to have her phone confiscated, she took it out of her pocket and slid it into her desk,” he said. “Class ended, and she left the classroom, forgetting her phone was in the desk.

A short time later, she remembered her phone and went to retrieve it. In the meantime, another class was starting and a boy had taken the seat Roberts’ daughter had previously occupied.

“The boy had found it and didn’t want her to lose the phone, so as she was walking in to the room he got up to give it to her,” Roberts said. “But the teacher saw it and took it away.”

As a result, Roberts’ daughter, who earlier in the year was reprimanded for having a text message come across her phone while it was in her book bag in class, was given a day of out-of-school detention and her phone was taken away until the end of the school year, in early June.

Roberts said he had no problem with the suspension: “I like for my daughter to learn there are consequences for her actions.”

But when Roberts tried to argue that the school’s rule that enabled officials to seize private property with impunity seemed overly severe, administrators pointed out that he had signed a statement acknowledging that he understood the school’s policies at the beginning of the year.

“But I begged to differ, so the principal pulls out a form with my wife’s signature, and of course I let him know that that wasn’t my signature, and I’d like to have my property back,” Roberts said. “Again, it mattered not.”

Roberts went so far as to travel to the Goose Creek Police Department to learn if he had any legal recourse. He was told, “You're dealing with a government agency – Berkeley County School District – and we’re just another government agency, and we have no jurisdiction over them.”

After doing a little research, Roberts discovered that Westview Middle School officials were within their rights to impound his daughter’s cell phone.

“The law says the schools can confiscate these devices, as long as they make provisions for returning them,” he said. “It doesn’t stipulate how long the devices can be held, it leaves it up to the schools to dictate. So, if the school’s policy states that the cell phone will be returned on the third Thursday in September of the year 2085, technically that would be in compliance with the law.”

It’s Roberts’ belief that administrators don’t want cell phones in their school, but they can't legally keep them out. All they can do is implement rules with draconian consequences to make it so painful that the parents won’t risk sending the child to school with a cell, he said.

Reach Dietrich at (803) 779-5022, ext. 110, or kevin@scpolicycouncil.com.