The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take up the constitutionality of prayers before municipal meetings, a question with potential implications for school boards across the country.

Meanwhile, the justices once again did not act on a pending appeal dealing with the legality of holding public high school graduation ceremonies at a church with many visible Christian symbols. The court has privately weighed the appeal in Elmbrook School District v. Doe (12-755) six times without taking any action on the closely watched case.

Also on Monday, the court refused to hear the appeal of the Kansas City, Mo., school district in a dispute over the diversion of state money to independent charter schools that the district believes belongs to it under a longstanding desegregation consent decree.

In the municipal prayer case, Greece, N.Y. v. Galloway (No. 12-696), the justices will review a federal appeals court ruling that the New York state community violated the First Amendment's prohibition against government establishment of religion by allowing private citizens to open town board meetings with a prayer.

The town has allowed volunteers to lead prayers since 1999. It says in court papers that it does not steer the citizens' choices in any direction and has had many faiths represented.

But those who challenged the practice say the town has relied primarily on Christian ministers, who often have elaborated on tenets of Christianity and celebrated the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

A federal district court upheld the town's practice under the Supreme Court's 1983 decision in Marsh v. Chambers, which upheld state legislative prayers.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York City, reversed, ruling last year that the establishment clause is violated "where the overwhelming predominance of prayers offered are associated, often in an explicitly sectarian way, with a particular creed, and where the town ... conveys the impression that town officials themselves identify with the sectarian prayers and that residents in attendance are expected to participate in them."

The town appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that there was a split on federal courts of appeals as to whether municipal prayers should be analyzed under the "historical" test of Marsh or the government endorsement of religion test from another Supreme Court decision, County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, in 1989.

Although school board meetings are akin to town or city council meetings in many respects, some courts that have weighed school board prayer policies have taken account of the unique factor that such boards are closely associated with education and that schoolchildren are often present for the proceedings.

In 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, in Philadelphia, struck down the board-meeting prayers of a Delaware school district, holding that meetings are more like other school events than like legislative sessions.

In 1999, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, reached a similar conclusion in striking down the policy of the Cleveland board of education on prayer at school board meetings.

The Greece, N.Y., case will be argued during the court's next term.

Consent Decree Battle

In the Kansas City, Mo., case turned down by the Supreme Court on Monday, the school system was battling a state panel, the Missouri Board of Fund Commissioners, over whether some $6 million-plus in interest would have to be diverted to charter schools in the city.

The school district argued that the money belonged in its coffers for regular public schools under the terms of its desegregation decree, but a state appeals court sided with the state panel.

The justices declined to hear the school board's appeal in School District of Kansas City, Mo. v. Missouri Board of Fund Commissioners (No. 12-1123).

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A search by school officials of a student's vehicle while it was parked just off campus was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, Nebraska's highest court has ruled.

The search had turned up drug paraphernalia, leading to a 19-day suspension for a Millard West High School student identified in court papers as J.P.

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled 5-1 that school officials exceeded their authority under state law when they concluded that a student driving to and from school without parking on school grounds gave them a sufficient nexus to school activities to subject the student to discipline based on that activity.

"We conclude that the school district did not have implied authority to search a student's vehicle parked off campus," the court majority said in J.P. v. Millard Public Schools.

The incident stems from a day in August 2010 when J.P. drove a truck to the high school and parked on an adjacent street. After one class, J.P. sought to exit the building to go to his truck, but a hall monitor refused him permission, court papers say. A short time later, J.P. snuck out to the vehicle anyway and retrieved his wallet and a sweatshirt.

A school security officer witnessed J.P.'s visit to his truck, and after some communication with others about whether the student had permission to leave the building, J.P. found himself in the office of Assistant Principal Harry Grimminger. The administrator required J.P. to empty his pockets, and that search turned up no contraband.

Grimminger said he wanted to search J.P.'s truck. The student refused consent, saying his dad would not want the truck searched. Nevertheless, the assistant principal and a school resource officer performed the search, and they turned up two drug pipes.

J.P. and his father challenged the student's suspension on Fourth Amendment grounds. A hearing officer found that school jurisdiction extended to the adjacent street where J.P. had parked the truck, and the suspension was upheld.

The family sued, and a Nebraska trial court ruled that the search was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment because school officials in this case had to meet the same standards for a warrantless search as the police, J.P. did not consent to the search of the truck, and the search of his pockets had not given the authorities probable cause to move on to the truck.

In its May 17 decision, the state high court affirmed the lower court. The court noted that the U.S. Supreme Court's 1985 decision in New Jersey v. T.L.O.—which said school officials need only meet a standard of reasonable suspicion to search students at school—had been applied many times by lower courts across the country to searches of student vehicles. But all of those cases involved vehicles parked on school property, the Nebraska high court said.

The court said it could not find a case that recognized "a right of school officials to conduct off-campus searches of a student's person or property which are unrelated to school- sponsored activities."

"On school grounds, school officials have authority to regulate and control student conduct," Justice John F. Wright wrote for the majority. "But school officials are not given express or implied authority to search on a public street, at a student's home, or on other premises off school grounds, including an off-school-grounds vehicle that is not associated with a school-sponsored event or activity."

It upheld the lower court's order that J.P.'s discipline be removed from his permanent record.

Writing in dissent, Chief Justice Michael G. Heavican said he believed school officials had several grounds to conduct the search of J.P.'s truck under the "reasonable suspicion" standard.

"Here, while on school property during regular school hours, J.P. lied to school officials on multiple occasions and J.P. exited the school without authorization and reentered the school on two separate occasions," Heavican said. "The majority's opinion allows students to violate important school rules without consequence. It permits students to hide from authority simply by parking their vehicles across the street."

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor told parents of English-language learners in New York City this week they must persevere in helping guide their children on the path to college and career success.

And such parents, many of whom are immigrants to the United States, should let their children help them adapt to American society and become lifelong learners, whether that means mastering English as a second language or computers, she said.

"You are committed to your kids, their education, and their success in life," Justice Sotomayor said to some 4,000 participants at the New York City Department of Education's May 15 ELL Parent Conference, according to SchoolBook, a website covering education news in the city. The site posted the complete audio of Sotomayor's 45-minute conference speech at the Jacob K. Javits Center in Manhattan. (Hat Tip to How Appealing.)

"I have repeatedly said that education is the gateway to opportunity in this country," Sotomayor said. "Your kids will not be college-ready or find the right career in life unless you create the conditions now for their future success."

Sotomayor, a Bronx native who is the daughter of parents from Puerto Rico, delivered remarks drawn from her bestselling memoir, My Beloved World, which documents her journey from a native Spanish-speaking youth who overcame self-doubt and other challenges to become a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, a prosecutor, federal district and appeals court judge, and the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court. She was nominated to the court in 2010 by President Barack Obama.

Noting that only Spanish was spoken in her home until her father died when Sotomayor was 9 years old, the justice said, "The lack of spoken English at home affected my early education. I was a marginal C student who did not understand what was being taught in my classes. I did not become a star student until 5th grade."

After her father's death, the family began to learn and speak more English in their home, and Sotomayor's mother passed along her love of reading, bringing both Spanish and English newspapers into the home, as well as magazines such as Reader's Digest and Highlights.

Celina Sotomayor, the justice's mother (who was present at the ELL conference), was a practical nurse who noticed that the Highlights magazine for children was always around in doctors' offices. "She figured that if all the doctors' had Highlights, we should have it at home," Justice Sotomayor said.

From there, it was on to her oft-mentioned love of Nancy Drew mysteries, which helped nudge her to an interest in law.

She also learned to ask for help with her education, starting in 5th grade when a classmate aided her and when her teacher "unleashed a competitive spirit in her" by awarding gold stars that were displayed on a classroom bulletin board.

"These are the [reasons] I became a good student in 5th grade," Sotomayor said. "They are the [reasons] I'm a Supreme Court justice."

Parents should let their children help them learn English or other subjects, she said, and they should turn to public libraries to learn computers and other topics.

Sotomayor also urged the ELL parents to help their children acquire good study habits and to take any opportunity to encourage them to write.

"I have lived my dreams beyond my fantasies," she said. "I have become a Supreme Court justice, sworn in a vice president, and thrown out a first pitch at Yankee Stadium. But the accomplishment that gives me the most satisfaction is having My Beloved World on The New York Times bestseller list."

"That's something your kids can do," Sotomayor said. ""The written word is the most powerful tool a person can have for success in life."

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A federal district court judge has rejected a legal challenge to a plan to close underutilized schools in the District of Columbia's public school system, saying he found it "curious" that parents were seeking to keep children in schools that were academically "weaker" and "more segregated."

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg said there was no evidence of intentional discrimination on the part of District of Columbia Schools Superintendent Kaya Henderson or others behind the plan to close 15 traditional public schools in the 45,000-student system. The plan is estimated to save some $8.5 million per year.

"The public-education landscape in the District of Columbia has changed," Judge Boasberg said in his May 15 opinion in Smith v. Henderson, denying a preliminary injunction to halt the school-closing plan. "The advent of public charter schools, coupled with demographic shifts, has resulted in substantially decreased enrollment in certain neighborhoods over the last fifteen years."

Parents challenged the plan on civil rights and procedural grounds, including under the 14th Amendment's equal-protection clause, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging that the plan adversely affects black and Hispanic students and families. Court documents show that in the District's public school system as a whole, 68.4 percent of students are black; 13.8 percent are Hispanic; 3.7 percent are Asian, other, or of unknown background; and 9.2 percent are white. In the 15 schools slated for closure, by contrast, 93.7 percent of students are black; 5.9 percent are Hispanic; 0.4 percent are Asian, other, or unknown; and less than 0.1 percent= (just two out of 3,053 students) are white.

Judge Boasberg said it was not enough for the plaintiffs to show a racially disparate impact of the plan to prevail; they had to show intentional discrimination.

"Under-enrolled schools in the District are concentrated in areas of the city where the number of school-age children has decreased and where charter schools have thrived—areas that happen to be almost exclusively black and Hispanic," the judge said.

Boasberg also rejected claims brought under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Rehabilitation Act that the closure plan adversely affected students with disabilities, including those with special education plans calling for them to be educated at their nearest public school.

Boasberg said the harms to the plaintiff parents and schoolchildren "are hard to spot."

The school system's "data show that the plan will reassign students to schools with significantly higher test scores and slightly more diversity," the judge said. "Although plaintiffs undoubtedly value their neighborhood schools, their injury seems slight given that their children—along with thousands of others—are moving to better-performing, more-integrated schools."

The District of Columbia decision comes the same week that the Chicago Teachers' Union filed two lawsuits challenging a plan to close 53 elementary schools in that city's system. Education Week's District Dossier blog reported on those suits earlier this week. The suits raise some of the some claims cited in the District of Columbia suit.

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A federal appeals court on Friday rejected claims from black parents that a student assignment plan for the Metropolitan Nashville school district led to unconstitutional resegregation of the schools.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled unanimously that although the 2008 student assignment plan modestly increased racial isolation in some schools, it did not classify students by race and was aimed primarily at improving the utilization levels of school buildings in the 81,000-student district.

"In the absence of any constitutional infirmity, it is not the province of the courts to dictate and supervise local school policy," the court said in its opinion in Spurlock v. Fox.

The case concerns the student assignment plan developed in 2008 to replace one that had been in effect for some 10 years after the school district that once practice de jure segregation of black and white students was declared unitary, or legally desegregated. (The district's website shows that student enrollment in the system is currently 47 percent black, 33 percent white, 16 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Asian, and less than 1 percent American Indian or other.)

The district's post-unitary assignment plan was largely based on where students lived, with clusters of high schools and feeder middle and elementary schools. The 1998 plan included a number of so-called noncontiguous attendance zones that generally involved busing black students from poor neighborhoods to racially diverse schools in higher-income neighborhoods. But that plan led to under-utilization of many schools and overcrowding at others, an issue policymakers struggled for several years to address.

In 2008, a task force made up of an equal number of black and white participants came up with a plan that, among other things, changed the noncontiguous zones to "choice zones." Under the plan, students from the noncontiguous zones could either begin attending their neighborhood school or continue to be bused to a school in the same cluster where they had been bused before, but not necessarily to the same racially diverse schools they had attended under the 1998 plan.

The plan was approved by the Nashville-Davidson County school board. It was soon challenged in court by two black families and later expanded to a class action involving other families adversely affected by the change. The suit claims that the assignment plan effectively directed the overwhelmingly black student population in the noncontiguous zones into inferior and more racially isolated schools. The suit, backed by a group called the Tennessee Alliance for Progress, alleged that the new assignment plan resulted in resegregation that violated the 14th Amendment's equal-protection clause.

A federal district court in Nashville upheld the plan after an 11-day bench trial. In its May 10 decision, the 6th Circuit court affirmed the district court.

First, the appeals court panel rejected the challengers' claim that the school district was classifying students based on race because its geography-based assignment plan relied on detailed racial and ethnic data about residential neighborhoods in Nashville.

"We find the plaintiffs' argument unpersuasive," the court said. "Racial classification requires more than the consideration of racial data." The court noted that in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that sharply curtailed the ways K-12 schools could take race into account, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's controlling concurrence cited "drawing attendance zones with general recognition of the demographics of neighborhoods" as one race-conscious action that remained permissible.

Next, the 6th Circuit court reviewed the district court's decision that while the 2008 assignment plan resulted in more racial segregation, it was not carried out with any segregative intent. The appeals court said the task force was charged with addressing the longstanding problem of underutilization of some campuses and that it went through a thorough and open deliberative process in coming up with its plan.

"There is no proof to justify the inference that the Task Force obtained racial demographic data in furtherance of an intent to segregate the Nashville school system," the appeals court said.

The court said the evidence suggests the assignment plan did help improve the utilization of school buildings in the district, but has apparently not done much to improve overall academic achievement or to close a persistent racial achievement gap in the district.

"Nashville public school students as a whole were doing poorly before the plan and continue to do poorly after the plan," the court said, adding that the plan's "effect on racial and socioeconomic diversity, although not dramatic in one direction or the other, appears to have drifted in the direction of increasing isolation."

Nevertheless, the plan does not violate the equal-protection clause, the court concluded.

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A federal appeals court on Thursday reinstated a Michigan law that bars school districts from deducting teachers' union dues for their employees.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled 2-1 that the state's Act 53, a 2012 measure that by its own terms was meant as "a check on union power," likely does not violate the free speech or equal protection rights of teachers' unions. The court threw out a lower court's injunction that had kept the law from taking effect.

The case accepts as a given that public-employee unions benefit from having agencies such as cities or school districts collect union dues and fees from their workers and pass them along to the unions. When the unions have to collect such dues on their own, there are added transaction costs as well as less of a yield than when the dues are withheld from government paychecks.

The National Education Association and its Michigan affiliate argued in their challenge to Act 53 that by barring only school employers (as opposed to cities, counties, or other agencies) from withholding dues for union-affiliated employees, the state was practicing a form of viewpoint discrimination that infringed the free speech rights of the teachers' unions.

The 6th Circuit majority rejected the arguments.

"Public Act 53 does not restrict speech; it does not discriminate against or even mention viewpoint; and it has nothing to do with a forum of any kind," Judge Raymond M. Kethledge wrote for the majority in the May 9 decision in Bailey v. Callaghan. "Instead, the act merely directs one kind of public employer to use its resources for its core mission rather than for the collection of union dues. That is not a First Amendment concern."

The majority said a 2009 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ysursa v. Pocatello Education Association foreclosed one of the NEA's key arguments because that ruling said the First Amendment "does not confer an affirmative right to use government payroll mechanisms for the purpose of obtaining funds for expression."

But in a lengthy dissent, Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch said the Supreme Court's Ysursa decision involved an Idaho restriction on public-payroll checkoffs for union political activities, not for general dues. And the Idaho restriction at issue covered all public-employee unions, "not just a disfavored few," Stranch said.

She said Act 53 "impermissibly discriminates against school unions because Michigan disagrees with the positions they advocate."

"School unions have a particular viewpoint that Act 53 seeks to muzzle," Stranch said. "They are large and well-funded advocacy organizations that actively push for spending allocations and legislative enactments that other [public-employee] unions do not share—and, in fact, often oppose when it comes to deciding how to split the pie of finite public resources."

The unions representing government firefighters, transit workers, or hospital employees do not necessarily share spending priorities such as increasing school funding or safeguarding teacher-tenure protections favored by the teachers' unions, she noted. So the school unions have a "colorable theory" that the state's distaste for the pro-teacher viewpoint they espouse in funding and legislative debates led Michigan to enact Act 53 "to mute their voice."

There appeared to be no immediate reaction on the Web from the teachers' unions or the state.

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A Texas state judge has held that allowing high school cheerleaders to display religious messages on banners at football games is not an unconstitutional government establishment of religion.

"The evidence in this case confirms that religious messages expressed on run-through banners have not created, and will not create, an establishment of religion in the Kountze community," Judge Steven Thomas of Hardin County District Court said in his May 8 decision in Matthews v. Kountze Independent School District.

The decision is largely in line with a preliminary ruling Judge Thomas issued in October that granted a temporary injunction allowing the cheerleaders at Kountze High School northeast of Houston to continue to display banners with messages referring to God and Christ.

The cheerleaders sued the Kountze district and then-Superintendent Kevin Weldon, who had said he felt bound by U.S. Supreme Court precedent, particularly in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, to prohibit the religious messages on public school grounds. The disagreement escalated to a controversy attracting nationwide attention and the involvement of outside legal organizations on both sides, as well as a friend-of-the-court brief filed on the cheerleaders' side by Gov. Rick Perry.

With the injunction in place and a trial scheduled for this summer on the merits, the Kountze school board evidently took action changing the district's views. During the winter, the school board passed a resolution concluding that occasional references to religion or quotes from religious texts on the football banners, when chosen by students, would not create an establishment of religion. Actions by then-Superintendent Weldon, the board said in a March 1 release, while taken in good faith, "may have inadvertently given the appearance of hostility to religion or of preference for irreligion over religion."

That shift evidently led the school district to side at least partially with the cheerleaders in seeking summary judgment in the case. In his decision this week, the judge did just that, granting motions of both the cheerleaders and the school district.

"Neither the Establishment Clause nor any other law prohibits the cheerleaders from using religious-themed banners at school sporting events," the judge said, adding that nothing in law requires the school district to prohibit religious-themed banners.

The judge's decision was lauded by the Liberty Institute, a Plano, Texas-based group which represents the cheerleaders. It issued a statement calling the decision a victory for "religious liberty of student leaders across the country."

The Kountze district issued a statement welcoming the ruling, saying it was in line with the school board's resolution on the banners. The district said, however, that it would seek clarification from the judge of certain "unsettled" matters.

The Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which had started the controversy by complaining about the banners on behalf of an anonymous Kountze resident, said in a statement that the judge's "misguided" decision "makes Christianity the official school religion in Kountze, Texas."

"The high school in Kountze is not a Christian high school, Kountze is not a Christian city, Texas is not a Christian state and the United States is not a Christian nation," foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said in the statement. "Proselytizing messages by cheerleaders representing the school, wearing the school uniform, at the official start of a public school football game, inevitably carry the appearance of school endorsement and favoritism, turning Christians into insiders and non-Christians and nonbelievers into outsiders."

It's not clear whether the decision is likely to be appealed, since both actual parties—the cheerleaders and the school district—seem to welcome the ruling.

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The Louisiana Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down the state's method for funding its private school voucher program.

The state's highest court held 6-1 that under the Louisiana Constitution, the per-pupil allocation of state education aid, known as the Minimum Foundation Program, must go to public schools. Under the 2012 law expanding the state's voucher program, a portion of per-pupil aid follows a voucher student to his or her private school. The law also created the Course Choice program authorizing state aid to pay for certain online courses.

"The state funds approved through the unique MFP process cannot be diverted to nonpublic schools or other nonpublic course providers according to the clear, specific and unambiguous language of the constitution," the majority said in the May 7 opinion in Louisiana Federation of Teachers v. State of Louisiana.

The court also held that state lawmakers violated certain procedural requirements in adopting the program.

Over at Education Week's Charters & Choice blog, Katie Ash has more on the decision, which is pretty specific to Louisiana but because of the size of the voucher program has attracted reaction from national groups on both sides of the voucher debate.

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to disturb a lower court ruling that upheld a New York state prohibition on the use of electric shock and other "aversive interventions" on children with disabilities.

The New York regulation was challenged by parents who believe such interventions, which also include food limitations and physical restraints, are proper for their children, who commit self-injurious behaviors such as banging their heads on walls and pulling out their own teeth.

The parents in the suit are among many in New York state who send their children to the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Mass., a facility that until recently used shock therapy and continues to use other aversive methods. The New York regulation applies to whether the state will pay for the out-of-state placement.

The parents argued that the 2006 New York state education regulation undermines their children's right to a free, appropriate public education under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The parents also raised claims under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In a ruling last August, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York City, ruled 2-1 that the state's prohibition of one possible method of dealing with behavioral disorders, such as aversive interventions, does not undermine a child's right to a free, appropriate public education under the federal special education law.

The appeals court noted that Massachusetts had recently adopted its own regulation that bars some of the interventions used at the Judge Rotenberg Center, including spanking, hitting, and skin shock. The Massachusetts rule allows certain other methods, such as loud noises, bad odor and taste stimuli, and short delays for students' meals.

The 2nd Circuit court said the change did not make the parents' challenge to the New York regulation moot, because New York's prohibition on aversive interventions is broad, and a successful challenge could permit families to seek certain therapies elsewhere.

However, the court rejected the parents' arguments that the New York regulation prevented them from getting an individualized education plan under the IDEA that was most appropriate for their children. The appeals court said the New York rule represented the state's considered judgment about what is best for the safety and education of its children.

"New York adopted the ban of aversives only after the [state] Education Department made site visits, reviewed reports, and considered complaints from parents as well as school districts and others raising concerns about aversive techniques," said the opinion by Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Dennis Jacobs. "It concluded that aversive interventions are dangerous and may backfire and that positive behavioral interventions are sufficiently effective to provide a [free, appropriate public education]."

"There is an ongoing debate among the experts regarding the advantages and disadvantages of aversive interventions and positive-only methods of behavioral modification," Judge Jacobs added. "The judiciary is ill-suited to decide the winner of that debate."

In their appeal to the Supreme Court in Bryant v. New York State Education Department (Case No. 12-932), the parents argued that the federal courts of appeals were split on the question of deferring to state authorities about the appropriateness of certain interventions.

"This case involves the collision between the state's power to make general policy and the student's right to individual consideration, and raises the question of whether the state may foreclose, by categorical rule, the use of an otherwise lawful, effective, and available treatment method in all circumstances," the parents' brief said.

In a brief urging the justices not to take up the case, the New York state education department said its 2006 regulation was prompted by a serious review of the scientific literature on aversive therapies.

"There is an emerging consensus among psychologists, policymakers, and disability-rights advocates that aversive behavioral interventions are dangerous and inappropriate," the state said in its brief.

The state pointed out that in addition to the 2011 adoption of the Massachusetts ban on aversives (which would not affect some children receiving the treatments at the Judge Rotenberg Center because of a grandfather clause), the federal government recently informed the center it would end Medicaid reimbursements for all services at the center as long as the center used aversives.

Neither the state of Massachusetts nor the Judge Rotenberg Center filed briefs in the Supreme Court appeal, which the justices declined without comment on April 29.

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A high school student's statements to an assistant principal about giving prescription pills to other students had to be suppressed in a criminal proceeding because the student had not been given a Miranda warning, Kentucky's highest court has ruled.

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the student was in custody when he was questioned by the assistant principal in the presence of a sheriff's deputy who served as the school resource officer. Thus, he should have been given the familiar warnings from the U.S. Supreme Court's 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona about the right to remain silent, the right to counsel, and that any statements he made could be used against him.

The student, a juvenile identified in court papers as N.C., made several incriminating statements to the assistant principal about possessing hydrocodone pills and giving two of them to another student. "I did something stupid," the student said.

The assistant principal explained that the student had violated school rules and would be disciplined. (He was eventually expelled.)

The school resource officer, meanwhile, told N.C. that he had also violated state drug laws and would be charged in juvenile court. The student was charged with felony possession and dispensing of a controlled substance. After a juvenile trial court refused to suppress his statements, N.C. entered a conditional guilty plea and was sentenced to 45 days in jail.

The student's appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court argued that the admission of his statements to the assistant principal violated his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. In its April 25 decision in N.C. v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, the state high court agreed.

The court said that under the U.S. Supreme Court's 2011 decision in J.D.B. v. North Carolina, in which the justices ruled that a suspect's youth was an important factor in weighing whether he was in custody for purposes of delivering a Miranda warning, it was clear that N.C. was in custody when he was questioned about the pills. He was pulled from class by the SRO, who was present during the assistant principal's questioning. The student had no reason to believe he was free to leave. However, he was under the impression that he was only facing school discipline, and not that his statements might be used against him in a criminal proceeding, the court noted.

"No reasonable student, even the vast majority of 17-year-olds, would have believed that he was at liberty to remain silent, or to leave, or that he was even admitting to criminal responsibility under these circumstances," Justice Mary C. Noble wrote for the majority.

The court was troubled by the fact that the assistant principal and school resource officer had worked in "tandem" before in questioning students. "Clearly, the assistant principal and the officer had a loose routine they followed for questioning students when there was suspected criminal activity," the court said.

The court also expressed concern that the adoption of zero-tolerance policies for student possession of drugs and other contraband was leading to "a dramatic shift away from traditional in-school discipline towards greater reliance on juvenile justice interventions."

"To the extent that school safety is involved, school officials must be able to question students to avoid potential harm to that student and other students and school personnel," Noble said. "But when that questioning is done in the presence of law enforcement, for the additional purpose of obtaining evidence against the student to use in placing a criminal charge, the student's personal rights must be recognized."

"A proper balance is struck," Noble added, "if school officials may question freely for school discipline and safety purposes, but any statement obtained may not be used against a student as a basis for a criminal charge when law enforcement is involved or if the principal is working in concert with law enforcement in obtaining incriminating statements, unless the student is given the Miranda warnings and makes a knowing, voluntary statement after the warnings have been given."

A concurring justice stressed the availability of the "public safety exception" to the Miranda requirement, a lesson many in the country have learned in the last week in the case of the suspected Boston Marathon bomber. Justice Lisabeth Hughes Abramson noted a 2007 Massachusetts state court ruling that the public safety exception applied in a case in which a 13-year-old found in possession of bullets was questioned about whether he had a gun without being given a Miranda warning.

Writing in dissent, Justice Bill Cunningham said the majority's decision will tie the hands of school administrators. He said students "are always in custody" when they are in public schools and that school resource officers are more like school personnel than traditional police officers.

"In this day and age, we should not be impairing school safety by the enlargement of rights of the students," Cunningham said.

In a separate dissent, Justice Daniel J. Venters said he did not think the "exclusionary rule," in which evidence obtained in violation of a suspect's rights may not be admitted in court, should apply to most juvenile proceedings.

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