DRUGS, PUPILS, PUNISHMENT

THE rowdy, slogan-chanting students at Moriah College are
right.

Their message, though variously expressed ("prevention, not
expulsion"; "support, not export"; "kids first, not reputation") is
clear.

The school is right to punish but is wrong to punish in the way it
has, by expulsion - or, more precisely, by suspension until 2001, with
possible readmission subject to proof of good conduct, successful
academic performance, completion of a drug awareness program, and
contrition. The expulsion/suspension question is essentially semantic.

The students are cast out. The question is whether that is the right
punishment for their offence, allegedly selling and buying marijuana
at the school.

One of the organisers of Monday's protest, Year 10 student Judd
Weinberg, said: "No-one is disputing the fact that what the students
did was wrong, but you do not expel them and put the problem onto
others." This is correct, even though putting the problem onto others
is only part of why casting out is inappropriate. The principal of
Moriah College, Mr Roy Steinman, has said the suspended children need
a fresh start at another school: "Part of the remediation is that they
undertake a rehabilitation program away from the environment which
caused their temptation." Mr Steinman also says there are other good
schools for the boys to attend and that "ultimately it is a community
issue".

The decision to cast out looks simple, but it is not. It includes a
concern to protect the other 1,500 students and the reputation of the
school.

There is also concern to punish the 11 offenders for their alleged
handling of marijuana, to "give them a message", in Mr Steinman's words.

At the same time, there also seems to be concern that offenders have
"other good schools" to go to while they rehabilitate themselves.

The problem with casting out - as distinct from the wide range of
other possible punishments and paths to rehabilitation within the
school which could have been chosen - is that it necessarily impacts
on others outside the school.

It may be, where a private school chooses to cast a student out, that
another private school will be found to take the errant child.

But, as often as not in such cases, the outcast child ends up in a
government school, whose principals have less freedom than their
private school counterparts to deal with such infringements by
suspension and expulsion, despite changes last year to give them more
such powers.

There is in this an inherent unfairness to the government school - to
its teachers and its students and by extension to their families.

Judd Weinberg's shame-laden phrase "put[ting] the problem onto others"
is brave and apt.

Yet refusal to have more to do with the problem is not the most
objectionable part of the decision.

Another concern driving the students' protest on Monday was the sense
that the problem is not confined to the 11 suspended students but is
for the whole school community, the "Moriah family", to solve.

This is surely right.

Yet Moriah College is not unique in its approach.

Many other schools would agree with its decision.

The number of teenagers generally who try marijuana is high and
possibly increasing. It is a problem so wide as to invite despair. It
is, as Mr Steinman says, ultimately a community issue.

But when an institution such as a school is confronted by the problem
in its midst, it should be bold. It should prefer engagement to
rejection, even though facing and dealing with the problem itself will
always be harder than a superficially tough decision to cast out
particular offenders.

The students protesting on Monday sensed that. They brought credit on
their school by saying as much.