rachel wrote:
Kugetsu wrote:
In many cases, when something like that is confiscated, it's not given back .
Surely thats stealing if you're not intending to give it back??
Well, not exactly. Only if the rule hasn't been passed by the district. If it is passed by the school board (more like the Board of District, since that's actually affiliated with the state government, but that depends on where you're from, I suppose), it would say distinctly in the school's fat book of rules (and the basic student handbook of rules) something about "A student caught breaking any of the following rules may be suspended/expelled or have the item in question confiscated and returned by the will of the higher authority... blah blah blah. (but of course in more professional mumbo-jumbo than that). Then following that was a list of all of the things that were deemed innappropriate and students are made to read them, agree to them, and sign a slip agreeing to abide by these rules or suffer the consequences set up for them. Of course, there was a way to get the said thing back (aside from the person just giving it back to you).
In my school, you could hold a meeting with the school board to get it back, which usually ended up in the student getting the item back (unless the said item were drugs/pills/etc that weren't given to the nurse.) It's really too much of a hassle for the school to have to go through meetings like that if it's avoidable. No one ever really did this though, because it was a pain and they didn't really seem to care, for some reason.
But no, once an item breaks the rules agreed to by the students before they registered in the school, and is confiscated by a higher authority, then the property is technically no longer the student's and whether it is returned or not is based on the will of the teacher that confiscated it, or, if needed, the principal or super intendant. With that said, though, nothing should be done to the said item before some sort of meeting or something like that can be conducted. In that way, this guy was wrong for messing with this guys phone (I wonder if his phone plan covers "crazy teacher attacks"...)
I don't know how other parts of the world, let alone, other parts of the US do it, though, as this may just be an Illinois or district thing. I'm sure there are other parts of this country that do it, though. It's just more often than not, the student gets it back at the end of the day, no worries or problems.