2 Wake County students say they were searched at school in Raleigh
WAKE COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) -- Two Wake County middle school students say they were searched in a hunt for drugs that turned up empty. The experience now has both girls saying they don't want to go to school and their mothers demanding change.
Lesonya Jefferson describes herself as a no-nonsense parent.
"You go to school to learn. Anything outside of that is unacceptable," said Jefferson.
She describes her 13-year-old daughter, Jahhna Brimo, as a loving child and not a trouble-maker. She's never even sent to the principal's office. In fact, she says the very idea of it still scares her.
"She thinks, 'Oh my God if I go to the principal's office my mother is going to get me,'" said Jefferson.
So when Jefferson got a call from the principal's office at Centennial Campus Magnet Middle School on Friday, she was shocked to hear that her daughter was in the principal's office and had also been searched.
"They searched her, asked her questions in regards to had she ever been in trouble, does she have anything on her, does she know anything about teen court," said Jefferson.
All this happened because she said Principal Katie McMillan suspected Jahhna had drugs.
"She was calling because it was told to her that someone smelled marijuana by my daughter's locker," said Jefferson.
Her daughter's locker was searched along with several others, including her friend, Kiala Golden.
Golden says she wasn't just searched.
"When they searched me, they cuffed me," said Golden.
"She was just devastated. She broke down crying. She was really upset," said Makeshia Woods, Golden's mother.
Woods said her daughter was also patted down by the principal then told she would be searched every day.
Golden said she was searched again on Monday, but not since then. All searches turned up empty. Now, both parents say this experience changed their girls.
"She should want to go to school. She loves school. So you take a child who loves school to now saying, 'Yeah whatever.' That isn't good," said Jefferson.
Now Jefferson and Woods worry the school is no longer a safe place for their children.
"We have to make sure that the environments the kids are in are learning-conducive environments, not environments where they dread to go to school, not environments where 'Oh my God. am I going to be searched,'" said Jefferson.
This school year is a first for both Brimo and Golden at Centennial Campus Magnet Middle school, and now their mothers are considering pulling them both out. Jefferson is thinking about putting her daughter back in private school and Woods is considering trying to put her daughter back in her old school.
ABC11 reached out to the Wake County Public School System headquarters. They say their protocol for student searches does not require parents to be notified before or after a search. They also say no one was ever handcuffed, that the principal did not conduct a pat-down, and that there was no second search on Monday.
