James Hargest High School was "behaving like a bully" and concerned families should get together to force a change in the way it dealt with problem students, an Invercargill youth advocate said yesterday.

Former Southland Youth at Risk committee chairman Bob Simpson said the plight of a 14-year-old third-form boy, who James Hargest excluded last month, was not an isolated case.

The James Hargest board of trustees decided to kick Scott Irvine out of school after he admitted smoking cannabis.

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The James Hargest High School board of trustees yesterday stood by its decision to allow four boys to remain at the school after an indecent assault while kicking out another for smoking cannabis.

Chairman Murray Frost, of Christchurch, broke his three-day silence after the board reversed an earlier decision not to talk to reporters.

The Invercargill high school has been publicly criticised this week for the apparent disparity in punishments it meted out to students involved in two separate incidents.

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James Hargest High School had inflicted a punishment more severe than the police or judicial system could ever have done when it excluded a 14-year-old third form student last month, the boy's family claimed.

Margaret Irvine said her son, Scott, could be out of school for up to three months until another school was found to take him.

Scott was excluded from James Hargest, in Invercargill, after an incident involving cannabis away from the school grounds and outside school hours.

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