Every student at Joliet West knows and dreads the term Random Search. When a random search occurs the security and deans say that they are searching for anything that can posed as a threat to the students’ safety. However, most students can attest that it seems more and more that they are searching for cell phones and other electronics during these searches.

This past November, I took part in the random search of the choir room. Although this was not the first search of the choir room, it was the first random search that I had encountered in my high school career. To my knowledge, a random search isn’t supposed to be as intense as this one had been. While generally a random search will facilitate the searching of a student’s bags and even using the metal detectors to find anything on the students themselves, I have never heard of security rushing through the entire room searching the closets and other places such as books and bookshelves.

According to both Ms. Brsan, the choir pianist, and Mr. Deboer, the choir conductor, the choir room had been searched before that one but it had never been taken to that extreme. Security guards searched the prop shelves, the uniform closets and even the choir librarian’s desk in the back of the choir room. To an outside observer, it would seem that the security personnel and the deans were looking explicitly for cell phones or other devices. While it is the school policy to not have phones on your person during school hours, it should not be such a problem that deans and security should have to interrupt the classes to search for them.

The Choir search was productive, even though it was disruptive to the class, and it produced around 30-some phones. Most phones were found throughout the choir room hidden in various places. This standard search did not require an entire sweep of the Choir room and made it seem that the administration was searching for something particular or they really were going against their word and searching for the forbidden cell phones.