NO ZERO TOLERANCE

From time to time, we read stories about students being expelled from
school for bringing cold medicine to school. Zero tolerance means zero
tolerance, and drugs are drugs, the reasoning goes.

But what should be done about a middle school teacher who comes to work
under the actual influence of cocaine? In Pensacola, Fla., they fired him,
as they should, but, unbelievably, he has been ordered to be reinstated. An
arbitrator said the penalty was too harsh because the teacher hadn't been
in trouble before and many of his relatives also were teachers. He ordered
the man returned to the classroom or to some other school job with full
salary, an order that was upheld by a circuit judge.

As the superintendent complained to the Pensacola News Journal, "We are
expelling kids for taking aspirin or No-Doz. Now we are talking about
someone taking cocaine, and that's OK."