DOSE OF COMMON SENSE

The Bossier Parish School Board has finally come to its senses and revamped
an expulsion policy that treated students caught with over-the-counter
medications as harshly as those caught with illegal narcotics.

The School Board voted to remove wording that required principals to expel
students found with any type of drug. That policy went well beyond state
law, which mandates expulsion only for students caught with illegal drugs
or controlled substances.

The change, which will go into effect when school resumes on Jan. 5, means
that administrators will be able to exercise some judgment in how to handle
cases that involve legal, non-prescription medication.

That's a much-needed change; the former policy was rigid and unreasonable.
It simply doesn't make sense to hand down the ultimate penalty -- expulsion
- -- for the relatively minor offense of failing to turn an Advil over to the
school nurse.

That's what happened to 15-year-old Amanda Stiles this fall. Just weeks
ago, the Bossier Parish School Board voted to uphold her expulsion.

Earlier this year, another student at Parkway High School was expelled
after teachers who were searching students for cigarettes found a single
antihistamine tablet in her purse, according to The Shreveport Times.

School Board member Henry Burns told The Times that he's been pushing to
revise the policy for some time because of incidents like those. "The
punishment needs to fit the crime," he said.

He's right, but the rest of the board had been adamant about maintaining a
zero-tolerance policy. That didn't change until Amanda Stiles' expulsion
prompted a barrage of criticism and greater scrutiny of the school system's
expulsion practices.

As it turns out, students who brought illegal drugs to school sometimes got
lighter punishment than those who brought over-the-counter medicine to
school. Discipline statistics from last school year showed that 47 students
were suspended for bringing controlled or illegal drugs to school and 22
were expelled.

That's disturbing since state law requires expulsion in those cases, and
Bossier Parish school officials can't seem to explain the inconsistency.
Superintendent Ken Kruithof said that special education students, who can't
be expelled because of federal law, may have been involved. Clerical errors
might have been involved as well.

Mr. Kruithof said that the school system will review the circumstances
surrounding all such expulsions. That's a necessary step, given the
confusion over how the policy has been applied.

To further complicate matters, discipline reports don't differentiate
between legal and illegal drugs. They simply refer to "pills." But there is
a big difference between pills like Advil and pills like ecstasy.

Now that Bossier Parish school officials understand that, the next step
should be to reverse the expulsion of students who were unfairly punished
under the old policy.