Source:   San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune
Contact:   Monday, January 26, 1998
Author: Robert Wallace, Staff
Page: B-3, Tween 12 & 20 section

DOES GIFT OF WINE MERIT SUSPENSION?

If you want to attend the holiday dance at Plainview High School in
Ardmore, Okla., you first had to pass a sobriety test.

Some civil rights activists frowned on the practice, but student leaders
and school officials felt the mandatory breath tests were a good way to
combat teen drinking. Stephen Matthews, principal of the 375-student
school, had threatened to cancel all school-sponsored dances for the year
after a drunken student couple disrupted homecoming festivities last fall.
He agreed to the testing in a compromise with the student council.

Alcohol possession on school campuses is a growing problem and
administrators are doing everything they can to fight it, but are they
sometimes going too far?

Take the case of straight-A student John Cahani of Atlanta, who decided to
give his French teacher a Christmas gift. He lovingly wrapped the gift in
an appropriate box, topped with a red bow. The only problem was that the
gift was a bottle of French wine.

When the teacher opened the gift, she notified the principal, who suspended
John for 10 days, in accordance with school policy, which stipulates a
10-day suspension for anyone bringing alcohol to school. John's parents
were upset at their son's long suspension for merely giving his teacher a
present. To register their displeasure, they announced, when the school
board refused to overturn the punishment, that they would take John on a
two-week vacation -- to Paris -- during the time he would not be allowed to
attend school.

John's gift to his teacher of a bottle of wine was inappropriate and
unwise. But school officials' response -- treating his action the same way
they would a student's bringing alcohol to school for his own use --
strikes me as an injustice and a stupid interpretation of the rule. Teen,
I'd appreciate your comments on this issue.