April 10, 2010 started out like any other day in the Burlison household. I was a stay at home mom to 8 kids at the time and mornings were always hectic. I was making lunches and then carpooling kids to their schools and setting up schedules for the activities that my homeschooled kids would be doing. Most of my children were homeschooled through middle school and once they hit high school age were allowed to decide if they wanted to go into public high school. My two oldest, Hannah and Connor, had chosen to enter the public school system and were students at Central High School.
Central High School was supposedly one of the best schools in our district. It had the International Bachelorette program and many other programs for gifted students. Both of my children who attended that school, were considered gifted by the districts standards with IQ’s over 130 but neither of my children wanted to participate in any of the gifted programs. I never pressured my kids to do things they didn’t want to, I was ok with their decision. I always raised my kids with bodily autonomy and trusted their decisions for their life. When I felt they were doing something wrong, I would gently nudge them in the right direction, but there was never force involved. Looking back, I can see in some ways how that was helpful to them, they learned the consequences of their actions, for sure, but sometimes I feel like they didn’t push themselves enough and I certainly wish they would have.
Central High School, despite its high praises, was also in a very poor part of town. It had a rampant drug problem. I’m sure it was like every other high school. According to my children, drugs were easily attainable. They knew several dealers in the school and would often tell me stories on how they were offered drugs by kids in their classes. I was a little upset by that, but knew my kids had a good head on their shoulder and would make the right decisions.
So, on April 10 when I dropped my son off at school I wasn’t worried. I went home, started my day with my homeschooled children. All was well until I got a ominous text from my son who was at school.
“Mom, they just locked down the school and have drug dogs sniffing every one.” Connor texted me.
“WHAT! What are you talking about?” I respond.
I then get a text from my daughter Hannah who drove herself to school and was late getting to school.
“Mom, they locked down the school and won’t let me in the school but also won’t let me leave the school campus.”
An hour or so goes by and I finally get text from my son.
“Mom they have us lined up against the wall, outside our classroom and drug sniffing dogs are in the room with police officers.”
This was mid morning and I was livid. I knew during a lockdown, they will not under any circumstances let you talk to your kids or remove them from the building. It is in fact just like a prison lockdown. No one can leave or enter the building. Kids are kept in their classrooms and can not leave for any reason. They have complete control over your children. On this day, the school was locked down for almost the entire day. My son and I spent the rest of the day texting intermittently about what was going on.
My son finally came home and tells me exactly what happened. They announced over the loud speaker around 9am that they would be going into lockdown mode and no one was allowed to leave. My son was in his science class at the time. Maybe an hour later, the kids were lined up, single file and escorted out of their classroom and instructed to stand against the wall. They were told they could not bring any of their belongings with them. All purses and backpacks were to stay in the classroom. Later I was able to watch the video footage of this, It looked just like a prison. It was infuriating.
Once the kids were outside the classroom, drug dogs were brought into the room. If I recall correctly, they stood outside their classroom for probably 30 minutes. When they were finally allowed back in, my son noticed his backpack was unzipped and another girl said her purse was tampered with. The police assured the kids none of their stuff would be opened, they were just having the dogs sniff the room. My son also told me throughout the course of the day after the official lockdown was over, but the dogs remained at the school, he saw the police have dogs sniff individual students and then pat them down. He also saw the police go through lockers as well. I can’t recall the exact amount but some students were arrested for drug possession.
After hearing this story, I was so angry, I called my then husband and told him what happened. His response was, “well, there’s not really anything we can do.” His voice was very timid and made me think of a dog walking away with his tail between his legs. I was absolutely shocked by his response. He was supposedly this huge Libertarian who served on our city council and was ready to fight the governmental wrongs, at least that was his persona, and he’s telling me there’s nothing we can do and we just have to accept it? WTF?
At the time, I was a very timid woman. I didn’t like to speak up very much. I posted about it on Facebook and many people defended the school with the same old, we need to keep drugs out of our schools and this is the best way. This response just pissed me off even more. How dare you advocate for the egregious violation of my child’s right to privacy and unlawful search and seizure.
So, I decided that I was going to fight this. I can not sit back and allow my child to be treated like a prisoner when he did absolutely nothing wrong. My child’s right were violated and will not under any circumstances let him go on thinking that that was right in any way shape or form. I can not sit by and let this go on.
I started searching the internet and came upon the ACLU’s website. I honestly did not think I would hear back from them when I filled out the form and described the situation. But the next morning, a representative from the ACLU, Doug Bonney, called me and had me tell him exactly what happened. He was appalled and said they have been getting more and more complaints about this from other parents in other states. He said that he would write a letter to the school and the local paper and then take our case under consideration. The next day, the letter was sent, printed in the paper the following day and then all hell broke lose.
Once the letter hit the media, my children were the main focus of a local talk show hosts diatribe. He accused my children of being caught with drugs and that’s why we are suing. This man was once an ally of my husband during his candidacy for city council and now he was saying awful things about my kids for thousands of people to hear. I want to be absolutely clear, none of my children were caught with drugs, arrested, or even questioned by police. My objection to this whole situation is the fact that my son was separated from his belongings, those belongings were then searched by drug sniffing dogs without probable cause or consent violating his Fourth Amendment right.
The local newspaper was no better. They posted their awful news story on their Facebook page and the commenters had a field day with taking shots at my family.
This for a moment made me rethink this whole situation. I felt bad for what was being said about us, but I knew I was right. I knew the school had absolutely no authority to treat my children like common criminals.
Stay tuned for the rest of the story. It’s long so I’m breaking it up into several parts!
RADICALIZED 22 years ago betrayed by so called "libertarians" ....FCC license should be pulled from the talk show broadcaster UNless a complete word by word recantation WITHOUT naming childrens names and "equal time" in exact number of minutes to rebutt all the lies against you&family AND OTHER INNOCENT STUDENTS frisked and violated by dogs.... the talk show incompetent host should be televised being frisked by private investicators AND sniffed by dogs teaching the 12 BILL of RIGHTs thereby 22 years later if the asshole is still alive
And now.... the rest of the story...