School expulsions for guns drop 8%

— The number of students expelled for bringing weapons to school in Arkansas dropped by 8 percent last year, the U.S. Department of Education said Tuesday.

State education officials say the decline is good news, but some expressed reservations about the law that requires the expulsions.

Arkansas' decline, from 62 to 57 expulsions, is in the mid-range among states. Fifteen states showed greater declines; 15 states showed similar declines, and 12 states showed increases in the number of expulsions. Seven states did not provide a percent change from the previous year. There are 450,000 students in Arkansas' schools.

Delaware, Oregon and South Dakota had the highest concentration of expelled students; Wyoming and the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam and Northern Marianas did not report any expulsions.

The federal Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 forced all 50 states to enact legislation ordering school districts to expel for one year any student who brings a firearm to school. School districts must report the expulsions or face loss of federal funds.

Arkansas complied by passing Act 567 of 1995, which mandates "expulsion from school, for a period of not less than one closed year, for possession of any firearm or other weapon prohibited upon the school campus by law." State law does not prohibit weapons other than firearms, but many school districts also ban weapons such as knives and brass knuckles.

Education experts say the report may be flawed because some states reported all weapons-related incidents in 1996-97, while others, such as Arkansas, reported only firearms possession.

But critics in Arkansas say their biggest problem with the report is the Gun-Free Schools Act itself, which they say unfairly targets students in rural communities.

"In itty-bitty towns, boys get up at dawn and go hunt deer and then they catch the school bus," says Kristen Gould, staff attorney for the Arkansas School Board Association. "I've had administrators be sick at heart because they knew they had to do what the law says, but were agonizing over it because it was a good kid."

According to Gould, a student who is expelled for bringing a firearm to school often misses more than one year. If a child is expelled in November, for example, he cannot rejoin his class until the following November, halfway through the first semester.

Furthermore, the alternatives available to a student during the year-long expulsion are not always feasible, Gould says. Home-schooling is difficult, especially for working parents, and private schools are expensive or nonexistent in many parts of the state. Correspondence courses are another option, but they are costly as well.

"When you get outside Pulaski County, you're not dealing with people who have a lot of financial assets," Gould says. "Sometimes what the children do is watch TV for a year."

Yet supporters of the law say a student who brings a gun to school is dangerous and doesn't belong there. After the spate of school shootings in Jonesboro, Littleton, Colo., Conyers, Ga., Edinboro, Pa., Pearl, Miss., West Paducah, Ky., and Springfield, Ore., they say they have little sympathy for kids who carry guns on campus.

"It may be a tough message, but it's also tough telling a parent their child has been shot," says Don Quinn, assistant superintendent of the Mountain Home School District. "With all the violence going on in our schools and our society, it's probably a necessary thing."

Lee Vent, superintendent of the Forrest City School District, says "some punitive measures need to be taken," but he does not think the law is perfect.

"Expulsion sometimes will compound the issue," Vent says. "Someone [who is expelled] might go berserk and start shooting [the school] up. We need to address the reasons why the gun was brought and why the child had access to the weapon."

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