District to Pay Families of Strip-Searched Girls

A southeast Missouri school district has agreed to pay $7,500 each to the families of eight junior high girls who were strip-searched over missing money, the district superintendent said.

The seventh- and eighth-graders, ages 12 to 15, were searched Jan. 6 after $55 disappeared from a teacher’s desk.

Attorneys said Poplar Bluff Junior High Assistant Principal Mike Ivie and security officer Johnny Williams conducted searches of gym clothing, purses, coats, shoes and pockets. When the money didn’t turn up, “the girls were subjected to a search by a female school nurse.”