Montreal students upset after being asked to drop their pants and undergo search at school

Four students at a Montreal high school say they were forced to lower their pants, revealing their underwear, as part of a search organized by staff to see if the boys were concealing vaping products. 

The students, a parent and friends of the students who were searched stood outside the school in protest on Monday morning. 

"It felt like being a prisoner," said Andrew Forgione, a 15-year-old Grade 9 student at LaSalle Community Comprehensive High School.

Andrew told CBC News he was taken into a room by two staff members on Friday, and told to pull his pants down to his knees. 

"That shouldn't be happening at a school. It's traumatizing for a victim. It isn't normal," he said.

"You're cornered in a room, you have no phone, you can't call your parents or anything. You feel forced."

Andrew says he was suspended after staff found a vape in his sock during the search.

Another student said he was asked to shake his underwear and bend over "to make sure nothing was hiding anywhere."

Andrew's mother attended the protest on Monday and said the school had not informed her of how he was searched.

"I was notified by the vice principal at LCCHS that my son was on a day suspension and that was it," said Laura McCarthy. 

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McCarthy said when she got home, her son was upset by what she described as a strip search.

McCarthy said she intends to file a complaint with the school. 

"I was devastated," she said. "My son was violated."