PUBLIC SPLIT ON STUDENTS' PUNISHMENT

Public opinion is split on how students arrested in an undercover drug
bust in the Alamance-Burlington schools should be punished. Of 1,348
Times-News readers who responded to a poll that began Monday and
concluded Friday, 30.3 percent said the students who were arrested
should be kicked out of school for the rest of the year. That meant
the toughest punishment was the most popular choice for poll
participants. But the second most popular response was the most
lenient: 28.4 percent said students should be punished by the courts,
but receive no punishment from the school system. Fifty students in
the school system were arrested Feb. 4 after an undercover operation
that started last fall. They were charged with possessing and selling
and delivering marijuana and various prescription drugs.

Superintendent Jim Merrill has said alternative education will be
provided for students who received long-term suspensions from school
following the arrests. That is contingent on the students and the
parents being willing to take part in a drug treatment program.

Students who have prior drug offenses relating to the school system or
who were already in an alternative education program won't be eligible
to take part in the alternative program. Those students, he said, may
be recommended for expulsion. Because the system's alternative high
school, Sellars-Gunn Education Center, is full, the alternative
program will be held at the system's offices on Ray Street in Graham.
Among punishment choices listed in the Times-News poll:

- - Four hundred and nine people, or 30.3 percent, said students
should be kicked out of school for the rest of the 2003-04 year.

- - Two hundred and ninety-four people, or 21.8 percent, said students
should attend school at an alternative site for the rest of the year.

- - Two hundred and sixty-two people, or 19.4 percent, said the
students should be allowed back into classes and receive school
punishment that doesn't interfere with class attendance.

- - Three hundred and eighty-three people, or 28.4 percent, said the
students should be allowed to return to school and be punished by the
courts.

The poll question was posted online on the newspaper's Web
site at www.thetimesnews.com. Readers also had the option of returning
a ballot that ran in the paper, which allowed them to include
comments. One poll participant, who said the students should attend
school at an alternative site, suggested that their punishment include
substantial community service. "They also need to do some time," the
reader said. Another reader, who voted for school punishment that
doesn't interfere with class attendance, wrote, "I believe everyone is
due a second chance if this is their first offense."