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Administrators credit the increase to student warnings and zero-tolerance policies.
By KENT FISCHER
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 26, 2001
The number of Pasco students facing expulsion has soared during the last four years, a direct result, principals say, of highly publicized campus shootings around the nation.
Four years ago, principals asked the School Board to expel 50 students from their campuses for offenses ranging from fighting to drug possession to bringing weapons to school. With two months left in the school year, principals have tried to expel 112 students, a 125-percent increase from 1997.
District administrator Bob Dorn said expulsions increased in large part because students are now more apt to alert administrators when they hear of classmates causing trouble.
"Columbine was the watershed event," Dorn said. "Kids aren't accepting (threatening) behavior on campus, and they're letting us know about it. The vow of silence is broken, and I think that's great."
For most students, a principal's recommendation for expulsion doesn't mean that they will be kicked out of the school system. Usually, it means they have to change schools.
About half of those students recommended for expulsion end up at one of the district's two alternative schools, records show. Most of the rest either move to another school or serve an alternative punishment such as a suspension or community service.
Rarely are students tossed completely out of the school system, although the number that have been also has increased dramatically over the last several years. So far this school year, 32 students have been kicked out of the district. In 1997, three students suffered a similar fate.
Educators have been loathe to totally expel students because that essentially brings their education to a halt.
"Our goal is to educate the kids," said Andy Frelick, principal of Wesley Chapel High School. "But a lot of kids have a history of trouble, and nothing we've tried has worked. Ultimately, there has to be a final straw."
Of the 112 expulsion recommendations made by principals this school year, 46 of the students enrolled in an alternative school. Three opted for homeschooling, 14 either stayed at their original school or moved to a neighboring one, and 32 were kicked out of school altogether. District records are unclear about the punishments handed down to the remaining 17 students, although administrators said it is likely that they are still being educated somewhere in the district.
Dorn said that the Columbine school shooting in 1999 was Pasco's turning point on discipline.
The 1998-99 school year was one of the bloodiest on record for campus shootings. More than a dozen students were killed that school year, and districts around the nation, including Pasco, almost immediately began enforcing zero-tolerance policies for weapon possession and threats of violence.
In Pasco, the results have been dramatic: 109 expulsion recommendations in 1998-99; 102 in 1999-2000 and 112 this school year.
Principals say "zero tolerance" is a big part of the increase. But so, too, is their effort to clamp down on habitual troublemakers.
"Some kids (used to) get themselves in to a jam with a pocket knife or (drugs), and we would be a little more lenient on them. But we're not any more," said Tom Rulison, principal at Bayonet Point Middle School for 16 years. "Principals are taking a stand, and (district administrators) have said, 'Don't tolerate it anymore.' "