Cellular cheating: Teachers’ examination of cell phones do not encroach on students’ privacy rights

There’s no need to be passing handwritten notes under desks. Forget inking your palm with math equations before the final.  If students today want to cheat these days, they have a much easier more effective method available: the cell phone.

Recently, incidents of cheating on tests with the use of cell phones have caused various teachers to examine students’ phones when they ring during class.  Although many students find that this policy is infringing on their privacy rights,  it is the only effective way for teachers to easily catch cheating going on during exams.

There are a variety of ways students can use cell phones to cheat.  Many students use their Smartphones in order to look up definitions, equations or other information during a test.  Others merely text their friends who are taking the same test to ask for the answer to a certain question.  In both of these cases and in most scenarios, the teacher could easily catch cheating by examining a student’s texts or search engine history. 

In the 1985 case New Jersey vs. TLO, the Supreme Court ruled that school officials do not have to obtain a warrant before searching the belongings of a student who is under their authority if the officials have reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated the law or the rules of the school.  

According to this ruling, teachers are allowed to check a student’s cell phone when they believe that it has something to do with cheating, because cheating is indeed a violation of the school rules.

According to a poll taken by commonsensemedia.org, more than one-third of teens with cell phones admit to cheating at least once with them, and two-thirds of all teens say others in their school cheat with cell phones.

With devices to make cheating easier, more and more students are able to get away with cheating.  Because the digital world is hard to track, students are less likely to face the consequences of their actions.  If teachers are not allowed to check students’ cell phones for evidence of cheating, there would be no way of catching cheating over phones.  

Additionally, according to the 2012-2013 student handbook, all phones must be turned off and out of sight in classrooms.  If a student’s cell phone rings during class, this is already a violation of school rules, and the teacher is expected to punish the student regardless whether or not it has to do with cheating.  

Many students argue that letting teachers check cell phones is an invasion of privacy and a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.  However, teachers do have the right to search a student’s belongings if they believe the student has violated school rules.  

In fact, if students themselves followed school rules and turned off their phones before the start of class, there would be no such problem.