LOS ANGELES – Students will no longer be subjected to random searches at Los Angeles Unified School District campuses after a vote by the Board of Education.

Previously, the searches were mandatory and required the staff to take students out of class. The students’ bodies, and belongings were then scanned with hand-held devices.

The random searches will officially end on July 1, 2020. Searches will still be enforced for anyone who is suspected of breaking school rules or the law.

The push to end the searches was driven by the Students Not Suspects coalition, which includes the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California. Policies to protect students moving forward will be determined by the coalition along with the Board of Education.

A report by Students Not Suspects claims that in 2018 0.08 percent of searches actually found weapons, but did not find any guns. Only four percent of public schools in the U.S. employ these random search techniques with metal detectors, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Analysis by the University of California Los Angeles Civil Rights Project on a quarter of LAUSD middle and high schools found that from 2013 to 2015, 34,000 students were searched. According to the report, in that time, 37 knives, 18 pepper sprays, and one bb gun were confiscated.

The president of the Board of Education, Mónica Garcia, supported the ending of the searches, according to the ACLU.

“We are pleased that this ineffective and discriminatory policy will be eliminated. We will begin working together immediately to build a vision of holistic school safety that respects students’ civil rights and civil liberties,” said Irene Rivera, education justice advocate and organizer of the ACLU SoCal.

In April, reporter Catalina Villegas spoke to a Venice High School student who said she feels like the searches treated students like criminals.