Pubdate: Sun, 19 Feb 2012
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2012 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Karen Auge

ZERO-TOLERANCE RULES FORCED COLORADO SCHOOL'S HARSH STAND ON SHARED INHALER

It was in gym class at Lewis-Palmer Middle School where Breana Crites 
and Alyssa McKinney first became friends. And it was in gym class 
where, late last month, all the trouble started.

"We were doing pacers that day" in the gym, Alyssa said. "We had to 
run back and forth, and every time it got faster. The workout was 
intense. I even had an asthma attack from that. I had to use my inhaler."

Then, Alyssa saw Breana double over after a particularly strenuous run.

"She came over saying her lungs hurt really bad," Alyssa said. "She 
was having a hard time breathing, and she said she needed my help."

The girls don't agree on exactly what happened next. Alyssa said 
Breana asked to borrow her inhaler. Breana said Alyssa offered.

Regardless, everyone agrees Breana took a puff from Alyssa's inhaler.

That puff didn't help Breana. But it did interrupt the 13-year-olds' 
educations - one was suspended, the other expelled - and sent ripples 
through the girls' Monument community.

It also reignited the debate over school discipline policies and 
their consequences.

Alyssa had her inhaler with her in the gym that day because her 
mother had gotten a note from her doctor, verifying that Alyssa has a 
prescription for the medication and that she might need to use it 
during school. Alyssa signed a contract that set the ground rules for 
using that inhaler. One of those rules was to never share her inhaler.

When gym class ended, the running stopped, and the girls dressed and 
headed to choir class. But Breana still couldn't breathe. So Alyssa 
insisted her friend go to the school nurse.

When she got to the nurse's office, Breana said, "my heart rate went 
up, and I was really shaky and jittery."

The nurse "gave me crackers and water, and she had me lay down and 
elevate my feet," Breana said.

Eventually, Breana's aunt came and took her home.

Breana said she's had attacks like that before. She doesn't know if 
she has asthma or not. She didn't go to a doctor before when she's 
had an attack, and she didn't go this time.

"We just never got the chance, I guess," she said.

Lewis-Palmer School District has a clear policy when it comes to 
sharing medication: it's forbidden, period. And no one, not Alyssa, 
not Breana, would argue that sharing medications is a good idea. In 
fact, with some medications, sharing can be extremely dangerous.

But with asthma inhalers, not so much, according to Dr. Henry Milgrom 
of National Jewish Health.

Using an inhaler, even for a person who doesn't have asthma, poses a 
negligible risk, Milgrom said. "And it pales in comparison to not 
treating" an attack, he said.

"We discourage patients from sharing medication, but in a situation 
where a person is in distress," those rules don't apply, he said.

The next day, Breana and Alyssa were called to the principal's office 
and questioned separately.

When it was over, both girls were told they were "suspended with a 
recommendation for expulsion."

Alyssa said she was escorted to her locker to get her stuff.

She confesses that she got in trouble at school once before, in the 
fifth grade, back in Utah. But she's been extra careful since then, 
she said. "I learned my lesson. ..."

Eventually, school officials called the girls' parents.

When Tim McKinney arrived at the school, they told him he'd have to 
take Alyssa home. "They said, 'Your daughter shared her inhaler.' 
They wouldn't go over specifics, but said, 'We have a zero-tolerance 
policy, and this falls under our drug policy.' "

McKinney agrees the girls should have been punished - maybe an 
in-school suspension and, more importantly, a school assembly to 
educate students about the dangers of sharing medications.

"There's no common sense in these zero-tolerance policies" he said. 
"My daughter really thought she was just helping."

Whether there is common sense is something that state lawmakers have 
been wrestling with for a couple of years.

In this land of Columbine High and the massacre there almost 13 years 
ago, plenty of people are wary about easing the tight grip of 
discipline that now enfolds Colorado schools. And, at a time when 
they're forced to take more and more money away from school 
districts, many lawmakers are loathe to make changes that could cost 
schools money.

Under Colorado law, four actions trigger automatic expulsion: sale of 
controlled drugs, serious assaults, robbery and bringing weapons to 
school, said Janelle Krueger, a Colorado Department of Education 
consultant in charge of the Expelled and At-Risk Student Grant Program.

Beyond that, districts set their own discipline policies.

Lewis-Palmer's policy doesn't mandate expulsion for the infraction 
Alyssa and Breana committed. "There is an ability to make a 
distinction about the intent or the circumstances," said district 
spokeswoman Robin Adair.

After the girls were suspended, there would have been an 
investigation, Adair said. "Our administration talked to everyone 
involved, got all the facts straight and made a reasonable decision 
based on those facts."

Since then, the district has been hammered with questions, and the 
story seems destined to take its place in the ammunition box of 
zero-tolerance foes, alongside tales of the first-grader who stole 
candy from a teacher's dish and got suspended.

But it's not that simple, Adair said, adding that under the law, she 
can't tell the whole story.

"This is not a situation like in open court where the public is 
allowed to know the facts of the case, because there are children involved."

Two weeks ago, the district sent a letter to students' families, 
telling them just that.

"Some information that has been reported is misleading, and the 
privacy of student disciplinary records prevents the District from 
telling the public any details about actions of students involved," 
the letter read, in part.

Lewis-Palmer Middle School doesn't have much of a drug problem, 
Alyssa said. And she can't remember ever seeing a real fight in the halls.

The Lewis-Palmer district as a whole is, by most measures, successful.

Serious discipline problems are uncommon. In 2009-10, the district 
recorded only 157 out-of-school suspensions. Out of about 5,000 
students, only three were expelled that year.

Expulsions are "extremely rare," Adair said. "Obviously, the best 
place for kids is to be in school. If we can keep them in school, 
that's the first choice. We don't take lightly the decision to remove 
a student from the classroom."

Last week, Alyssa was back in school. Tim McKinney said he's 
convinced that is because he advocated for her.

Breana wasn't so lucky.

"I'm expelled," she said last week. "They said I could go back next year."

Adair wouldn't talk about Breana's case. But she said due-process 
procedures were followed.

Now Breana's grandmother is trying to find a way for her to finish 
eighth grade.

"We were trying at first to go to an alternative school, but that 
didn't work out," Breana said. So now, her grandmother is looking 
into online schools, she said.

Adair said the district offers options to families of expelled 
students. "We will always go over with students what alternatives 
there are. There are lots of them," she said, including a district 
online program.

A couple dozen states require schools to provide alternative 
educations for expelled students, but Colorado doesn't, exactly. The 
state does require school districts to "offer services" and to make 
alternatives available, Krueger said.

"They cannot wash their hands totally of the students and let them go 
adrift," she said. But the extent to which districts must make 
alternatives available is a bit of a sticky issue.

There is very little data on what happens to kids after they've been 
kicked out of school for an extended period.

That's partly because of privacy rules that make collecting that data 
difficult, said Russell Rumberger, director of the California Dropout 
Research Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

But Jim Freeman, director of Ending the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse 
Track Project, a group that argues zero-tolerance policies unfairly 
target minority and disadvantaged students, believes the real 
explanation is less benign.

"The biggest reason is that not enough people have been invested in 
learning the answers to those questions," Freeman said.

Colorado doesn't track whether expelled kids ever graduate or get 
their high-school equivalency certificate, Krueger said.

Breana said she's sad that she won't be back with her friends this 
year and won't get to sing in a school play this spring, something 
she did last fall.

"I was looking forward to that."

Breana and Alyssa aren't friends anymore. And their days of sharing 
gym class are over.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom