STUDENT FACES EXPULSION FOR $5 WORTH OF POT

"Jimmy" doesn't offer any excuses for going to school with a half-gram of
marijuana in his pocket.

"I regret I took it to school," said the 15-year-old student at Centennial
Regional High School, whose name can't be printed because he's a minor.

But the Grade 10 student said he doesn't feel he should be kicked out of
the Greenfield Park school for getting caught with $5 worth of pot in early
November. Jimmy should be transferred elsewhere, administrators say,
because of a "zero tolerance" policy of the Riverside School Board that
calls for the expulsion of any student caught with illegal drugs.

"Our policy doesn't draw a distinction between $5, $10, half a gram, a
gram, or 2 grams - if you're in possession, you're in possession," said
Riverside director-general Kevin Lukian. "It's felt that this is a way to
make it crystal clear to students that these are the consequences."

Jimmy's case comes at a time when Riverside is reviewing the merits of the
policy, which Lukian said has long been supported by parents and teachers.
Still, he acknowledged, it's a policy that has also had its share of critics.

Such policies have frequently sparked debate between advocates, who hail
them as deterrents, and opponents, who denounce them as one-size-fits-all
measures that don't recognize students as individuals.

"I'm not trying to knock down the rule of zero tolerance; I'm just saying
it's too stiff," Jimmy's father complained. "A lot are just kids being dumb
and experimenting. The school has got to have a little bit of leniency."

The policy, the father said, doesn't consider that Jimmy is just over a
year away from graduating; or that he's getting Bs in history; or that this
is the first time he was caught with pot.

"I believe in a strict tolerance, in that there's a brain behind it," he said.

In Quebec, school boards have the right to set their own disciplinary
guidelines, so policies vary from board to board, and sometimes, even from
school to school.

Robert Cadotte of the Commission Scolaire de Montreal said a CSM student
caught with a little marijuana would probably be punished, but not expelled
from a school.

By contrast, under Riverside's policy, school officials can ask the board
to expel a student caught with illegal drugs. Jimmy has been suspended from
school until the board settles the question of expulsion in early December.

Although she refused to comment specifically on Jimmy's case, Centennial
principal Carol Marriott said she doesn't think grades, or past behaviour,
should be considered when a student is caught with drugs.

"It's like you're a good person who's speeding and I'm a bad person who's
speeding. Does only one of us get the ticket?" Marriott asked. "We're not
punishing the kid, we're punishing the action."

And both Marriott and Lukian add that the policy doesn't exist just to
punish kids, but to help them. When students are expelled, they're put into
a six-to-eight-week transition program where they study and receive help
from guidance counselors before entering a new school, Lukian said.

"As difficult as it is for students and parents to go through this now... I
think in the long run it's a wake-up call."