Schools Stay Strict on Pot

Despite decriminalization, schools keep strict drug possession policies
January 29, 2009
Connie Paige, Boston Globe

Area school superintendents surveyed recently said they have no plans to reverse their zero-tolerance policies concerning students found with drugs.

While school rules put students in a different category than other users in the wake of a new state law decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, the superintendents maintain that the rules are for the students' own good.

Nashoba Valley Technical High School Superintendent Judith Klimkiewicz pointed out the rules help protect students' health and safety - especially in a school like hers where students often wield heavy and sharp-edged equipment and work with toxic and heated substances.

"The issue of drugs for a student who is high behind a desk in a math class is brutally different than for a student behind a lathe saw," she said. "That presents a clear and obvious danger."

Klimkiewicz said she is taking a lead from Mitchell D. Chester, the state commissioner of elementary and secondary education. Chester issued an advisory that the new law does not alter the authority of school officials to impose discipline, including suspension or expulsion, on students who possess 1 ounce of marijuana or less on school property or at school-sponsored or school-related functions. Under the law, the advisory noted, possession is defined as not only holding marijuana but also having it inside one's body.

Tewksbury Superintendent Christine L. McGrath said officials at that town's schools all agreed on maintaining existing rules. She said they are listening to advice from Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone.

Leone is among many law enforcement officials - notably Attorney General Martha Coakley, other district attorneys, and police around the state - who have lobbied against the new law.

"We remain focused on continuing to send a clear message to our children that marijuana remains unhealthy, dangerous, and illegal in Massachusetts," Leone said in a statement about the new law, passed by voters at the ballot box in November.

Despite health and safety aims, the school rules can wreak havoc on students' lives, as Groton-Dunstable high schooler Cody Manley recently discovered the hard way. The 16-year-old was suspended for four months and barred from playing interscholastic football after he was caught on school grounds last October with three friends possessing a small amount of pot.

"I think it's unfair," said Manley, whose parents have taken the issue before the Groton-Dunstable School Committee for redress.

Manley was scheduled to return to school on Monday. Now he must receive counseling with a drug and alcohol specialist, submit to monthly drug testing, remain on probation for the rest of the school year, and cannot leave the building while school is in session.

After hearing Manley's case, Groton-Dunstable School Committee chairman Paul G. Funch said he believes that penalties under the marijuana rules can sometimes be too harsh. For example, he said he believes there should be reconsideration of the rule allowing a report of first-time marijuana possession to remain permanently on a student's transcript.

"I think that's really beyond the pale," Funch said. "You should get their attention, but I don't think their lives should be so severely impacted."

But Groton-Dunstable Principal Shelley Marcus Cohen said the policy must be maintained for the students' protection.

"Drugs are not going to be allowed on this campus," she said.