COURT OVERTURNS DRUG SUSPENSION

The mother of a special needs student expelled for smoking cannabis out of
school hours is elated her son will return to school.

In the Auckland High Court on Friday, justice David Baragwanath quashed the
Northcote College board of trustees' expulsion and ordered the fifth-former
be allowed back to class.

The trustees have to pay the $7495 legal bill.

Baragwanath had said previously the school appeared to breach the Education
Act requirement that principals try to arrange alternative schooling for
students who have been expelled.

Aged 15 at the time, with an intellectual level of an 11-year-old, the boy,
dressed in his school trousers, smoked the drug with two friends in a
Birkenhead carpark on March 21.

The next day, two younger students were caught smoking cannabis in the
college and because the boy was seen close by he was questioned. He said he
was not involved but said he had smoked the drug the day before.

The boy was expelled but the other students were allowed back because they
were younger and it was their first offence.

However, the school has not changed its mind on its tough stance.

When the Star-Times spoke to Northcote principal Ted Benton in June he said
he took a hard line with students aged over 15 caught smoking drugs.

"The older students rarely get a second chance.

"We would expect fifth-formers to know what's going to happen," he said in
June.

On Friday, he had the same stance.

This was despite the boy, whose name has been suppressed, having pleaded
for a second chance in the Sunday Star-Times, saying: "I'm sorry, I won't
do it again and will you please let me back into school."

Yesterday, the boy's mother said: "He's so happy he's going back to school.
That's the only school he wants to go to."

The boy's family said it held no grudges against Northcote College but was
aware he had missed two terms of schooling so could be behind in his studies.

The boy had spent the last two terms at home and was bored.

The mother said she was proud her son had not lied to the principal about
smoking cannabis.

"You would think the school would have given him another chance seeing as
he told the truth," she said.