MORIAH STUDENTS REVOLT OVER DRUG BAN ON 11 CLASSMATES

Students will stage a protest rally at Sydney's Moriah College today
against the school's decision to suspend 11 of their classmates for
more than a year for allegedly buying or selling marijuana.

Year 10 student Judd Weinberg, one of the rally organisers, said
yesterday he expected about 50 students to take part in the protest,
which will call on the Jewish private school to reverse its decision.

"As this is the Jewish month of Elul, when Jews are supposed to show
forgiveness and repentance, the school is being hypocritical when it
is not prepared to give its own a second chance," he said.

The co-educational Jewish school at Bondi Junction suspended the Years
8, 9, 10and 12 students on Thursday after a week-long inquiry found
they had breached its rules.

Meanwhile, the annual conference of the Parents and Citizens
Association was told yesterday that private aswell as public schools
should be obliged by the StateGovernment to maintain a welfare policy
for students facing expulsion for drug use.

Ms Christina Smith, representing Fort Street High School, told the
conference's 300 delegates that because private schools received
significant government funding, they should be required to help such
students.

Ms Smith said it was unfair that private schools did not have to
justify a decisionto expel a student, whereas public schools were
governed by a strict departmental procedure for suspensions and expulsions.

Students who had been expelled from private schools often ended up in
the public system. The private schools washed their hands of the
problem, Ms Smith said.

The P&C Federation supports the policy of immediate suspension of
students for violent behaviour or threat of violent behaviour and for
possession of illegal substances and weapons.

But it wants the Department of Education to ensure that alternatives
to suspension are explored. The P&C Federation was involved in a
review of the department's procedures last year which led to a new
policy being implemented in the 1999 school year.

A spokesman for the federation said the new policy did not sacrifice
the interests of well-behaved students to help troublemakers.

But it ensured that a child could not be deprived of his or her
position in a school except in accordance with the principles of
procedural fairness.

Last year, almost 33,000 students in government schools were placed on
short suspensions of up to four school days.

Students put on long suspensions numbered 5,396, while 237 were
excluded, meaning they had to move schools.

Only one government school student was expelled during
1998.

In a separate move, the P&C Federation Conference supported a
requirement for all schools given public funds to fully and publicly
account for all the money they receiveand spend.