LEOMINSTER -- The mother of a Samoset School eighth-grader is planning to take legal action against the city's school district after administrators suspended her son for a year for carrying a three-inch pocket knife to a dance. Karen Macfee Leger initially called for Leominster school administrators -- specifically Samoset principal Elizabeth Schaper -- to overturn their decision and allow her son Lucas back in school. Now she says its too late for Lucas in Leominster schools. "Lucas can't go back to school now. I could go and plead before the school board, but people in school could make his life hell. It'd be awkward with teachers. Missing so much school, he'd have failing grades," Leger said. Honor student Lucas Macfee is close to serving a month of his year-long suspension from school -- or what Leger calls a sentence - -- for taking a hit from a marijuana joint and carrying a three-inch pocket knife to a school dance in October. [continues 350 words]
Dora Arnhold has seen students come to school high and drunk. She's also offered rides home to teens she knows shouldn't be getting in a car after a night of partying. As an 18-year-old high-school senior, she's on the front lines when it comes to teenagers and drugs. She said, sadly, that many parents don't know what's going on. "Parents. They have no idea," the Gardner High student said. "Their kids would never do something like that. ... Their kids are perfect." Cocaine, marijuana, mushrooms, acid, LSD, ecstasy, painkillers, OxyContin (OC's) and heroin have always infiltrated the schools, but it seems to be getting worse, area teens and administrators say. [continues 1913 words]
