Most of us, if we're being honest with ourselves, will concede that we have two sets of rules -- a tough but fair code of behavior that applies to everyone on the planet, including ourselves, and ever so slightly more flexible regulations to be employed if and only if we happen to get caught breaking our first set of rules.
Like every other school, St. John's College High School, a fine Catholic institution just off Military Road in Northwest Washington, has lots of great kids and some bad apples. Like every other school, St. John's has some kids who smoke dope.
Most parents I know take a hard line on drugs. We don't want them in our kids' schools, period. We want the schools to excise the bad influences, with extreme prejudice, preferably yesterday. That's our first rule. Sometimes, that second rule kicks in.
A few weeks ago, St. John's administrators, acting on information gleaned from students, searched the belongings and vehicles of six students and found marijuana and drug paraphernalia. The school told the six students to withdraw or be expelled. They left the school. If I were a parent at St. John's, I would stand and cheer.
Flip the point of view: John Rasmussen's daughter was a senior who was caught with about one gram of marijuana in her locker. Her story is that a friend gave the pot to her that morning, and she was going to give it to another friend. Whatever you make of that, her father contends that the small amount, the girl's clean record and her immediate apology to school officials argue for a lesser punishment, with an emphasis on counseling and a path toward redemption. Rasmussen, who lives in Olney, calls what happened to his child "an injustice," the result of an "administration run amok. What do you think they might do to a real pot smoker, alcoholic, dealer? Maybe death by hanging?"
Lori Puente's son, also a senior, was somewhat more involved, and his mom knew it. "My son has been skirting on the fringes of that scene for a while," says Puente, also an Olney resident. "I had searched his car and room and found paraphernalia. We had discussions about it. We took away the phone, we took away the car, we took away the friends. We fully believe parents are the anti-drug, and he's guilty 'til proven innocent." On the day of the search, her son's car had two marijuana cigarette roaches in the ashtray, along with a scale and three bottles of beer, all unopened.
There's a story, of course, involving a friend who had asked the boy to return the scale to the store. But the bottom line, Puente readily concedes, is that "he was helping a friend hook up to get some pot. He's guilty of aiding and abetting."
Puente is also clear about wanting her son punished. "I immediately viewed this as a blessing," she says. "Finally, somebody's going to help me get through to this knucklehead that this is not okay. My son was upset and scared, and the first thing he said to me was, 'This isn't worth it.' "
But like Rasmussen and the parents of others who were told to leave, Puente believes the school went too far, abandoning its responsibility to educate in favor of jettisoning the problem. Puente proposed that her son be suspended, removed from extracurricular activities, sent to drug counseling and subjected to random testing. No go.
Rasmussen, similarly, wanted his daughter to be assigned to community service or suspended. "Determine if she has a problem and get her counseling if she does," he says. He immediately had her tested and her blood came up clean. "Expulsion should be the last resort, especially for a first offense," the father says.
Although the Rasmussen and Puente children have moved to Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring, they and two other families involved in the incident have hired a lawyer; they argue that St. John's did not follow its own policies and dealt with the students in a cavalier fashion.
Brother Thomas Gerrow, president of St. John's, would not discuss the case or his approach to drugs or discipline. He cited the school's confidentiality policy, even though the parents were willing to waive it. But while the St. John's handbook notes that "human nature seems to have an inborn tendency to make mistakes," the drug policy is clear: Any student using or possessing drugs or alcohol faces "severe school discipline, including dismissal." Rasmussen and other parents focus on the flexibility of that policy.
But in a letter to St. John's parents a few days ago, Principal Jeffrey Mancabelli said that "students should know that there are consequences for their actions. . . . I want to thank the many of you who called and wrote in support of the administration as we have taken a hard stand and sent a clear message about this type of behavior."
Private schools have the luxury of booting kids pretty much at will, though in this era of lawsuits as sport, the practice can be very expensive.
