School administrators in Michigan who conduct random locker searches would be backed by state law under a bill that passed the House of Representatives Feb. 3.

The legislation says students should not expect privacy in school lockers and that school administrators have the right to search the contents for items that are illegal or against school policy.

Although many schools already conduct random locker searches, the bill’s supporters say a state law is needed to clarify that they are legal.

“What you’ve got are a number of districts that are curious what the parameters really are when it comes to locker searches,” said House Speaker Chuck Perricone, R-Kalamazoo Township. “They’ve been calling for clarification for a number of years.”

Opponents say the bill, which passed the House 90-13, is not needed and invades students’ privacy.

“Let’s remember that most of our kids do the right thing most of the time,” said Rep. John Hansen, D-Dexter, who voted for the bill after amending it to say that students are allowed to have items in their lockers that are neither illegal nor against school policy. “If we want them to trust us, we have to trust them.”

The bill would require all school districts that have lockers to draft a policy on searches and give a copy to all students and parents. School principals or their designees could then search a locker at any time in accordance with the policy.

The locker search measure is House Bill 5233. At press time, the bill was headed to the state Senate for consideration. n

A county in southwestern Colorado is moving polling places out of public schools, in part because of safety concerns since the Columbine High School massacre.

Officials in Montezuma County worried about allowing unsupervised adults into schools to vote, said Deputy County Clerk Carol Tullis.

“What with all the issues of school safety, we decided to pull the precinct polling places out,” she said.

In February, police detained three teens outside Ignacio High School, 55 miles east of Cortez, after discovering several guns, one of them loaded, in their vehicle. The youths said they had the guns for protection and had no intention of attacking the school.

At Columbine, two teen-agers killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide last April.

The Columbine school district, in Jefferson County, has no plans to end voting at schools but was considering increasing security at school polling sites for the March 10 presidential primary, said district spokesman Rick Kaufman.

Ed Arcuri, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s elections division, said he wasn’t aware of any moves elsewhere in Colorado to move voting booths out of schools.

The New Mexico Department of Education wants schools to be more environmentally friendly in getting rid of pesky pests.

The department is proposing regulations that would require schools to apply chemical pesticides only when a problem exists. That would end periodic preventive spraying. The agency also is proposing that parents and staff members be notified at least two days in advance of spraying.

Supporters say the goal is to encourage cleanliness, and to close paths that pests use to get into a building. But critics contend some portions of the rules are overzealous and show a lack of understanding of modern pest-control methods.

Reports on injuries to children from exposure to pesticides “are fairly conclusive,” said John McPhee, childhood injury prevention coordinator for the state Department of Health.

“From a childhood injury standpoint, it is the same as a child riding a bicycle without a helmet,” he said. “They may sustain an injury from overexposure that may be permanent.”

McPhee said children and infants are more likely than adults to be injured by exposure to pesticides, and the proposed regulations are common-sense preventive measures.

The state Department of Agriculture, pest control companies, and some school officials question whether the rules will let schools effectively control pests, such as cockroaches, ants, and termites.

The rules could prevent treating buildings for termites during construction, for example, said Bruce Carter, president of the New Mexico Pest Management Association.

Groups that back the regulations don’t understand modern methods of pest control, said Carter, owner of Carter Services, a pest control company in Farmington.

The Albuquerque School District, the largest in the state, is working to reduce chemical use by regular inspections and humane traps to catch animal pests, said Fred Montano, supervisor for building services. The district uses foam in cracks and other methods to keep pests from getting inside buildings, Montano said.

“A major part of it is going to be cleanliness, get rid of the crumbs and dispose of all the food particles,” he said. “If we contain that, we are doing a good job.”

A toned-down bill given tentative approval by the Arizona House of Representatives would require that Arizona’s younger students be reminded at least once a year to leave guns alone.

The bill (HB 2225), which originally would have required firearms safety training in all schools, was amended Feb. 15 to keep safety programs as electives for grades 7 through 12.

Elementary schools would have to provide safety training such as the National Rifle Association’s Eddy the Eagle program, which tells kids who find a weapon to “stop, don’t touch, leave the area, and tell an adult.”

Representatives approved the measure while meeting as a committee of the whole House on a voice vote. At press time, the bill was awaiting a final floor vote in the House before heading to the Senate for consideration.

“This is very simple,” said Rep. Linda Gray, R-Glendale. “Children that age have no business handling a gun.”

The House rejected an amendment by Rep. Ken Cheuvront, D-Phoenix, that would promoted promote abstinence regarding the use of guns as the state does in sexual education.

Rep. John Loredo, D-Phoenix, called the programs “an easy sell for guns to kids” and argued that talking to kids about firearms is a job parents should be doing already.