ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 30, 1997 TAG: 9703310116
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SERIES: Disorder in the Schools - A Special Report
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER THE ROANOKE TIMES
Roanoke Valley school officials say they might not have suspended a first-grader for kissing a classmate, but that other supposedly silly cases aren't so silly.
In recent months, there has been a rash of new stories about students being suspended or expelled across the country for what look like inconsequential infractions of school rules.
The incidents included a 6-year-old boy who kissed a classmate, a student who brought a paring knife to school to cut the chicken she brought for lunch, and a student who gave Midol to a classmate.
A 13-year-old honor student in Texas was sent home when a bottle of Advil was discovered in her backpack.
A 5-year-old kindergartner in Newport News was suspended for bringing a phone beeper on a field trip.
Recently there was a story about an 8-year-old girl being suspended because she brought her grandfather's pocket watch to school in Louisiana. Attached to the watch was a 1-inch knife for cutting fingernails. School officials considered the knife a weapon.
News reports generally depict the students as the wronged parties, victimized by rigid rules. School officials are viewed as being silly, unreasonable and lacking common sense in enforcing discipline codes.
Roanoke Valley school officials say it's no laughing matter, even though they might have handled some of the cases differently. School officials have to consider many factors in enforcing rules on drugs, weapons and sexual harassment, said James Gallion, assistant superintendent for Roanoke County schools.
Some students can have an allergic reaction to Midol or other common medications.
"Some youngsters don't realize the dangers of drugs," Gallion said. "There are a lot of horror stories out there about drugs, including over-the-counter medications."
School officials can be sued if they are lax in enforcing rules and a student is injured with a knife or becomes ill because he gets a drug from a schoolmate.
School officials say that middle-class parents, who think their children should not have to abide by regulations because they are such good kids, will often be the first ones to call lawyers if something goes wrong.
Parents say they want a safe school environment, where violence, drugs and sexual harassment are not tolerated. But they sometimes ridicule school officials' zero-tolerance policies.
Although the kissing incident involving the 6-year-old boy seemed harmless, Gallion said, the growing concern about sexual harassment has forced schools to do more to try to prevent it.
"There is a whole new day when it comes to this issue," he said. "Sexual harassment is much broader than what it used to be, and we need to change attitudes about it."
School officials can be held liable for failing to take action to prevent students from sexually harassing schoolmates. In California, the family of an 11-year-old girl won a $500,000 judgment because school officials ignored her complaints about harassment by a 14-year-old boy.
According to new guidelines from the U.S. Department of Education, a kiss on the cheek by a first-grader does not constitute sexual harassment.
The guidelines urge school officials to consider children's ages and to use common sense in dealing with sexual harassment complaints.
Salem Superintendent Wayne Tripp believes that school officials sometimes go too far in rigidly enforcing regulations, citing the suspension of the kindergartner for bringing a beeper to school.
A second-grader in Salem brought a beeper to school last fall, but he was not suspended because Tripp said children at that age don't fully understand what they've done.
State law makes it illegal for students and others to have beepers at school without a legitimate reason. The portable communication devices sometimes are associated with drug dealing.
Roanoke Superintendent Wayne Harris said the age of students shouldn't excuse them from punishment if they violate the ban on weapons, however.
School officials expelled a 10-year-old boy who brought a gun to a Roanoke elementary school. Schools can't tolerate guns in schools regardless of the child's age, Harris said.
School officials said it can be difficult to make children and parents understand that what appears to be a harmless knife can be dangerous.
"Safety is our foremost concern," said Ann Harman, executive for student services for Roanoke schools. "Not all children are alike, and we have to look at the circumstances of a case."
Harris said he considered the highly publicized case about Midol to be serious because it involved the theft and distribution of a drug. A student in Ohio had taken the pill from a nurse's station without permission and given it to another student.
If a similar incident occurred in Roanoke, Harris said, the student would have been disciplined.
"We take seriously one child giving a drug to another because we don't know what kind of reaction there might be," he said. "There's always an element of judgment in these types of cases."
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