Bipartisan Legislation Would Prevent Strip Searches In Wisconsin Schools
Proposal is response to Oconto County incident where 6 girls were forced to strip down to underwear.
A student walks down a hallway with lockers Friday, Sept. 17, 2021, at Hackett Elementary School in Beloit, Wis. Angela Major/WPR
Wisconsin lawmakers are working to advance a bill that would expand the definition of an illegal strip search of a student.
The legislation is in response to an incident in January 2022 at a northeast Wisconsin school in Oconto County.
Former Suring Public Schools superintendent Kelly Casper confined six students to a restroom off the school nurse’s office to be searched for nicotine vapes, according to the district attorney’s office.
The families hired a civil rights attorney who filed a notice of claim with the school, but as of March, a lawsuit was not filed.
Charges of false imprisonment were filed in March 2022. A press release from the Oconto County district attorney’s office said Casper lacked legal authority to confine the girls in the bathroom without their consent during the search. Those charges were dismissed by a circuit court judge in June 2022. Casper resigned later that month.
Under current law, it’s a Class B misdemeanor for a school employee to strip search a student, but the definition of that search is limited to exposing or touching private areas including genitals, buttocks or breasts. This bill would expand that to include a search of a person still wearing undergarments.
State Rep. David Steffen, R-Green Bay, is an author of the bill. At a public hearing of the state Assembly Committee on Education Thursday, he said the legislation would protect children in the future.
He praised the Surling School District’s response to the incident but said the state has hundreds of other districts.
“I think for the benefit of those six young ladies, who have yet to have some form of justice, can we at least adjust the law to protect others?” he said.
Casper was not fired, but Steffen said she “came to a settlement agreement with the school district, essentially, a golden parachute to go away, so no criminal impact.”
State Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Green Bay, also spoke in favor of the bill Thursday.
“Technically speaking, there was no strip search conducted,” he said. “This is an effort to incorporate what happened there into the definition of strip search, so it can’t be done.”
The bill has received support from Democrats and the state Department of Public Instruction. It could be voted on by the education committee this summer.
The committee also heard testimony on other bills Thursday. One would supply schools with anti-choking devices, another would define critical mapping data for school safety plans and another would issue a declaration of equivalency of high school graduation or a general educational development certificate.
Listen to the WPR report here
Bipartisan legislation that would expand definition of illegal strip search in schools gets public hearing was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio
Careful with how states spin their numbers.
Can check data.bls.gov for more histprical info. But yeah, last year was bad (for numerous reasons) but we’re hardly fully recovered. Compared to Mid 2017 (last real peak) we’re still 37k jobs down.
Unemployment rate is lower now sure but there’s also less actual jobs even available to be filled in the first place. Less folks working -> can get a “better” unemployment rate given the same number of unemployed people.
It is a positive trend nonetheless and hope things continue to improve.
who would have thought that strip searches in schools was even possible. nicotine tapes are really dangerous if you point them at someone else. these are children and the idea of strip searching them, is ridiculous.
Oops those comments were meant for https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2023/07/21/wisconsin-has-record-number-of-jobs/