The Pleasant Valley School Board directors weighed whether or not to send a policy regarding searches, specifically the section about a search of student’s body, back to the administration for review.

In a 5 to 3 vote, the request to send it back to administration failed.

School board director John Gesiskie broached the subject at their regular meeting on April 4. He asked for a motion to send Policy 226 Searches back to the administration for review.

Policy 226 was adopted on Dec. 3, 2015 and reviewed on March 8, 2024. In it, searches that involve the removal of clothing or examination beneath clothing are required to be done “only by a staff person of the same gender as the student, with at least one other staff person of the same gender present as a witness, and in a location assuring privacy from observation by persons not involved in the search or of the opposite sex.”

In an interview after the meeting, Gesiskie said that because some students do not identify as the sex they were assigned at birth, he thinks maybe they would want the search to be conducted by someone of the same sex with which the student identifies.

Gesiskie had mentioned this to the school board directors at their meeting on March 25, so he didn’t go into details during the April 4 meeting.

In the interview, Gesiskie said he brought this up because he thinks it would be best to address it now, than to wait for there to be a problem.

He admitted that he doesn’t know what the correct protocol should be, but he thinks it should be looked into further.

According to the policy, a search of this type would only be done if “the basis for suspicion establishes” that either “the items being searched for are concealed specifically inside undergarments” or “that the quantity or nature of the items being sought present a higher level of danger to the school population than other kinds of contraband.”

Before this type of search can be conducted, the policy requires that the school district consults with the district solicitor first.

School board directors Matthew Walters and Michael Galler also voted in favor of sending the policy back to the administration for review.

Directors Ryan O’Keefe, Melanie Zipp, Norm Burger and Robert Clark voted no. President Susan Kresge said she was interested in an administration review, but also voted no in officially sending it back. Director Diane Serfass was absent from the meeting.