AFTON SCHOOLS TO PAY LEGAL BILL

MIAMI, OK -- An Afton schoolteacher is back at work, and taxpayers are
footing an $18,000 legal bill after the school board voted to fire the
woman after an 8-foot-tall marijuana plant was found on her property.
Catherine Weaver, 51, won two appellate decisions after being dismissed
from her fifth-grade teaching position at Afton in November 2000.

The Supreme Court refused to hear the school district's appeal in June,
forcing the district to rehire Weaver, who has been teaching for nearly 19
years. She resumed teaching in August.

Attorneys for Weaver and the school district said Friday that they were
still drafting an agreement on back pay, but the school district had agreed
to pay Weaver's attorney fees.

School board members voted unanimously to dismiss Weaver on grounds of
moral turpitude, neglect of duty and incompetence after narcotics agents
found the 8-foot marijuana plant behind a barn on a property that Weaver
shared with her husband, Joe Weaver, 48, a former school principal.

Criminal charges against Weaver were dismissed in October 2000.