The New Jersey Supreme Court is facing an opportunity to clarify the rules for searching students and keeping discipline in our state’s public schools. In doing so, the high court will explore a delicate balance of rights and interests.

In State v. Best, an 18-year-old high school student allegedly sold a green pill to a fellow student. Acting upon reasonable suspicion, the assistant principal searched and found three white pills on Thomas Best, but nothing in his locker.

The assistant principal then searched Best’s car, which was parked on school property, and found more pills.

The first searches will survive court scrutiny, and the car search is also likely to be upheld. But the state Supreme Court — which is now examining this case — should also use the case to give broader guidance to students, parents, school officials, law enforcement and judges.

Courts have continually sought to strike a balance between the competing interests of protecting and educating our young people on the one hand, and preserving individual constitutional privacy rights on the other. This balance helps us measure our collective values.

Schools have a societal responsibility to maintain drug- and violence-free environments conducive to learning. Additionally, schools are in a position of authority and trust. Parents hold schools accountable for virtually everything related to their children, so schools have the ability to ensure that their rules and society’s laws are not being violated within their grounds.

As a result, students have greatly limited privacy rights in public schools.

Schools are not prisons

On the other side of the equation, schools are not jails. Students may carry legal, noncontraband items that are personal and potentially embarrassing. State and federal courts have noted that students do not automatically waive all constitutional privacy rights merely by walking through the schoolhouse doors.

In trying to balance these interests, courts have given school administrators wide discretion to conduct searches on students without imposing the rigorous standard of probable cause that adults are entitled to. This has led to countless warrantless searches of students’ persons, purses, lockers and cars.

The Best case is more routine and likely less controversial, but the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Safford v. Redding exemplifies the extremes and dangers of disregarding students’ privacy rights.

In Safford, a 13-year-old girl was strip-searched in response to allegations that she was peddling prescription strength Ibuprofen to her peers. Further, she was forced to turn out her bra and panties, to show that nothing was hidden. In an 8-1 ruling in favor of the young girl, the Court found that the search had gone too far, emphasizing the humiliating and degrading nature of the experience.

The Supreme Court’s decision indicates that there are privacy rights for students, and there are limits to schools’ ability to maintain order.

As appalling as the Safford scenario is, this is the type of situation that develops when courts and legislatures fail to define and delimit appropriate conduct, so that all may be aware.

The Best case offers our Supreme Court an opportunity to offer greater guidance. Here are a few principles that should be articulated by the court:

► Rather than permitting any school official to act with unfettered discretion, there should be a designated authority, specifically trained as to how to conduct reasonable searches.

► The nature of the alleged offense should inform the extent and scope of the search — there should be a logical connection.

For example, school administrators should not have the complete discretion to search an automobile upon hearing that a student impermissibly is carrying a cellphone within the school.

► Should the possible violations become so grave as to expose a student to criminal prosecution, law enforcement may be better positioned to handle the situation. These searches must be conducted efficaciously in the interest of “swift and informal disciplinary procedures needed in the schools.”

But schools are not built for criminal investigations. Once the need for immediate discipline becomes absorbed by a larger criminal investigation, the stakes increase, as should individual rights. Higher standards of review should be imposed, and law enforcement officials may be better suited to partner and follow up.

► Any standards must recognize that students’ rights are different from those for adults, even though the dangers may be similar. The same rule for a student parked during the school day should not apply to a parent parking on campus to attend a football game.

Further, allegations of a teacher or administrator giving alcohol or drugs to students, albeit perhaps more serious, cannot be treated under the same framework as student discipline.

New Jersey is normally a vanguard in protecting privacy rights for its citizens. But courts have balked at extending to schoolchildren the same rigorous constitutional privacy protections provided to adults. If as a society we are fine with these privacy intrusions, by giving up our collective parental responsibilities to the public school system, then the result and reasoning behind Best might be exactly as the case says — best to allow the search.

But that should not be the end: Our high court’s decision in Best can set the standard for school searches, especially so as to prevent the appalling actions in the Safford case, while still protecting the safety of schools and promoting a positive learning environment.

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