District tinkers with no-tolerance policy

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- As school board members and students alike lose their

tolerance for the district’s zero-tolerance policy, they are struggling

to come up with viable alternatives.

Newport-Mesa Unified School District board members Jim Ferryman, Dana

Black and Martha Fluor will sit down with Supt. Robert Barbot and

district staff today -- their second meeting on the topic.

The goal of the meetings are to come up with ways to make an absolutely

unbending policy more manageable.

Although no one is certain of what form those changes will come, most in

the group agree that the policy should contain options for first-time

drug and alcohol offenders.

“The part of the policy I have a problem with is the automatic transfer

of first-time offenders,” Fluor said. “We need to be able to provide the

best solution if we are going to intervene in a child’s life.”

The current policy calls for a 30-day suspension and a school transfer --

with no exception -- when students are caught using drugs or alcohol.

Ferryman said that tactic merely pushes the problem aside, to another

school, and does not help the student.

“What good does it do to send them away?” he asked. “If we are going to

help the kids, let’s not stick our heads in the sand and send them where

they may have the same problem.”

That same concern was presented to Barbot and Black in a meeting

Wednesday with Newport Harbor High School students Steve Weller and Casey

Johnson.

The two seniors, who are part of the Student Political Action Committee

set up to promote positive change on campus, also are looking for a

policy change.

After learning from Barbot about the state and federal laws that govern

much of the zero-tolerance policy, the students said they would still

like to see options that include counseling for first-time offenders.

The policy may deter students from attending school events drunk, Johnson

said, but those students may just go elsewhere.

“You can only say, ‘no’ so many times,” she added.

The Newport Harbor students are organizing a town hall meeting, or open

forum, to discuss the issue and possible solutions. Their goal is to have

it by early December.

Weller and Johnson also have agreed to submit two formal suggestions to

the board that they think would meet the needs of students without

weakening the policy.

The absolute nature of the policy is its greatest strength to some and

its biggest problem to others.

Ferryman said the policy treats the varying levels of student behavior

that fall under the policy to the same degree, when “not every incident

is the same and not to the same severity.”

The administration, he said, must be allowed to do its job and determine

the proper punishment.

Ground zero?

How should the school district’s zero-tolerance policy be changed, or

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