Mother, Student Speak Out About Peabody Middle School Search

PEABODY, MA — A mother of a student at the Higgins Middle School said her daughter was searched by a school official last month, even after the student said she did not give consent to be searched without her mother present.

Students in an eighth grade art classroom at Higgins Middle School had their backpacks and other personal items searched by a school administrator on Jan. 17 after a student said her cellphone and more than $200 went missing. Peabody Superintendent Marc Kerble confirmed that the search took place and said parents of the students in the class were notified, but declined to discuss other details of the search.

Michelle Baker, however, told the school committee Tuesday night that parents were not notified before the searches took place. She said when she asked school officials why they had not been notified, she was twice told "Do you expect us to call 30 parents?"

Baker told the school committee her daughter texted her from the classroom as the incident unfolded. She went to school to ask that her daughter not be searched without her present. Baker said her daughter texted her 15 minutes after she arrived at the school and was waiting in the office to say she had been searched, even though she did not give consent to being searched without her mother present.

"I asked my daughter who apologized after they searched you and she said nobody," Baker said, adding that later in the day other students told her they thought she had stolen the phone and money because she asked to have her mother present when school employees searched her.

Baker said she sent an email and left a voice mail for Mayor Ted Bettencourt, who also chairs the school committee, asking to discuss the search. Bettencourt, who did not attend Tuesday's meeting, did not respond to her messages, Baker said.

School committee members do not respond to speakers made during the public comment portion of the meeting because those issues have not been previously listed on the agenda. But they did say the issues raised at Tuesday's meeting "will be looked into."

"You cannot say there was a reasonable suspicion of thirty students. The scope of the search was far too wide," Baker said. "There was no thought put into this...there was no basis for this."

Baker asked the school committee to consider adopting a new policy for such incidents. Baker's daughter also spoke during the public comment period of Tuesday's school committee meeting. She said students were taken individually into a supply closet to be searched.

"The class was suspicious of me and thought I took the money," the eighth grader said. "It does really matter and does at least need to be talked over with teachers and administrators that they need to talk things over before they take action."

Watch Michelle Baker's comments to the school committee: