SHOCKING AFTERSHOCKS

TEACHER'S ARREST UNDERSCORES DRUG PROBLEM IN AREA SCHOOLS

As if the recent arrests of 50 students for selling drugs in
Burlington-Alamance Schools were not burden enough for a rattled
community to bear, now this: A teacher at Graham High School has been
arrested for peddling cocaine to a 15-year-old.

The first-year teacher, Heather Renee Sweat-Melancon, 23, who also
coaches girls junior varsity basketball, has been suspended with pay.
Following a search of the couple's home, her husband, John Mark
Melancon, also was arrested on drug charges.

Officers not only found marijuana, cocaine and drug paraphernalia in
the couple's mobile home, but they found cocaine and telltale tools of
drug use (razor blades, straws, etc.) in her school office.

If she has done what is alleged, and the evidence is damning,
Sweat-Melancon has violated a fundamental trust. Her actions were so
brazen and audacious as almost to defy logic. In the wake of a
five-month undercover sting that netted the 50 student arrests on Feb.
4, she still apparently was bold enough to sell drugs to a student.
And the student still was bold enough to make the purchase. On school
grounds, no less.

Fortunately, actions by the school's principal and assistant
principal, with tips from other students, helped prompt the arrest.

One would hope that this is an aberration -- an isolated incident that
surely isn't repeated anywhere else in area schools. But based on the
discomfiting news of recent weeks, who knows?

There certainly are typically stringent guidelines in teacher
screening and selection. Thorough background checks are routine. But
they only can reveal crimes for which someone has been caught.

Meanwhile, a group of some parents earlier this week questioned the
fairness of the sting that spawned the earlier student arrests.

Their angst is understandable; young hearts, minds and futures are at
stake. Every student is entitled to due process and a fair hearing in
court. But these parents shouldn't be so preoccupied with softening
the consequences of their children's actions that they overlook the
actions themselves, or their root causes.

The drug culture is deeper and more widespread in area classrooms --
not just those in Burlington-Alamance -- than many of us knew, or
chose to know. But ask students in Guilford County or elsewhere if any
of this surprised them, and many will tell you no. Wednesday's arrest
underscores that cold reality.

After the blanket arrests on Feb. 4, Alamance Sheriff Terry Johnson
noted that many of the drug transactions had occurred in classrooms,
while teachers' backs were turned.

Sadly, it appears, not every teacher's back.