“when it comes to fulfilling their obligation to keep sexually explicit images, audio and text from reaching the eyes and ears of minors while on school grounds”
The only areas where they have such a responsibility is in (1)official academic materials THEY present to students, (2)”private” materials anyone on their staff (negligently) presents to students, (3)actions/behavior of anyone on the school staff that constitutes “presentation” of “sexually explicit images, audio or text”, (4)sanctioned use of any school property or facility for any of the aforementioned actions, (5)sanctioned presentation on campus of an officially invited guest who “presents” any of the aforementioned materials or action/behavior.
But, material that is privately contained on a personal communication device and intended by that device’s owner for “sharing” only with those whom that owner chooses, does NOT constitute material that comes under a school’s “obligation” to control.
Now, if that same owner of the cell phone took it upon themselves to make printed copies of the images on the cell phone, to bring those printed images to school and make distribution of them on campus; that the school would be obligated to control and to prohibit - the student would have taken their private material public, on campus.
“School Sanctioned” being the nuts and bolts to that argument.
(Now that I’ve read the article)....
They took a (against district policy) ringing phone and searched it. That is where they screwed the pooch. Arguments against sexting on campus aside, there was no reason to assume that behavior was going on here.