Posted on 02/04/2005 3:32:21 PM PST by MRMEAN
Ask straight-A student Sam Dungan about cruel and unusual punishment and he can marshal a lightening-bolt answer: Bill of Rights, Eighth Amendment.
The bushy-haired senior, after all, became captain of the state-champion quiz team at Staunton's R.E. Lee High School by attending after-school practice sessions at a teacher's house.
"I guess I'm one of the preppy, sort of nerdy kids," says Dungan, 17.
But when the honors student applies for a travel visa to enter Chile this summer or to college later on, he might have to explain why he was suspended and ordered to attend alcohol counseling following a random drug search last week at the high school.
"The only time I've ever seen marijuana is at a [drug-prevention] D.A.R.E. program," says Dungan, also a varsity soccer player.
But a drug-sniffing police dog apparently was convinced Jan. 26 that Dungan had marijuana in his car.
" 'Dude, they're searching your car,' " Dungan says, relating what he heard from students in the hallway.
Actually, it was his father's car, an old Volvo station wagon. Dungan was driving the Volvo because his car needed repairs, his father says.
"Everybody agrees it's my car," says Staunton attorney James Dungan.
Sam Dungan, raised by a defense attorney and a pediatrician, Dr. Elizabeth Pinkston, who writes a weekly column for this newspaper, called his father when he learned that police wanted to search the car.
The father drove to Lee High School and had a chat with his son before consenting to the search.
"I thought, 'This is nuts.' I said to [the police], 'I don't smoke marijuana, my wife doesn't smoke marijuana, and my son doesn't smoke marijuana," the father recalls.
All the while, students were peering from rows of classroom windows.
Rather than play hardball, James Dungan allowed the search without requesting a warrant.
" 'We think we see marijuana seeds,' " James Dungan says, relating what police say was in the car.
The police dog's nose might have been off that day, or maybe it was the scent of the Dungans' St. Bernard, because no marijuana or seed was found.
Something else was found, however: a weapon and alcohol, actually a rusting Boy Scout pocketknife with a 4-inch blade and a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream liqueur.
"He's paying for the 'sins' of his father," says James Dungan.
The Baileys was left in the car after a Christmas party with relatives, and the decades-old Scout knife belonged to James Dungan's brother, the father says.
After learning that his son might be booted from school, James Dungan met with Principal John Fahey and Staunton City Schools Superintendent Harry Lunsford the next day.
"I go over all these facts, and they both agree these things are not his," he says.
Fahey and Lunsford, meanwhile, say they are not allowed to discuss any student's disciplinary case.
But Fahey speaks highly of Sam Dungan: "He's a good student. I have a great deal of respect for him."
In any disciplinary case, Fahey says, he is supposed to enforce the administration's decisions.
"I have to set aside personal feelings, whether I like it or not," he says.
For driving his father's car without apparently knowing about the Scout knife and liqueur, Class President Sam Dungan was suspended for five days, banned 30 days from extracurricular activities and ordered to attend several alcohol-counseling sessions.
The punishment was pulled verbatim from school regulations, handed down by a Student Planning Committee headed by Student Services Director Mickey Fenn, who could not be reached for comment.
A few days later, however, the punishment was softened, after James Dungan's attorney filed for an appeal and after several phone calls from The News Virginian to school officials.
James Dungan says officials agreed to put the 30-day ban on ice, which allows Sam to participate in an upcoming Quiz Bowl competition. The alcohol program and five-day suspension remain in effect.
Sam Dungan eventually might have to face the 30-day ban, but he says he'll play along. And he'll do the alcohol-counseling program if forced, even though he says he's no party animal.
"In the best of all worlds, there shouldn't be a punishment. I think that zero-tolerance is too draconian. It's too harsh. It doesn't look into each case and examine the circumstances surrounding it," he says.
Superintendent Lunsford says that the Staunton school system does not adhere to a zero-tolerance policy. Disciplinary policy is set by the School Board and may be enforced with flexibility, he adds.
Although Lunsford could not discuss any student's case, he agreed to answer general questions about disciplinary policy.
"The Student Planning Committee always has the option to listen to all of the input from parents and the principal who's dealing with it and make a determination that could vary from some of the specific options based on the facts in the presentation," Lunsford says.
The Virginia Department of Education sets general guidelines, but local school boards have the flexibility to create their own conduct rules and punishments, says DOE spokesman Charles Pyle.
"School boards shall include, in the regulations on codes of student conduct, procedures for suspension, expulsion, and exclusion decisions ? to preserve a safe, nondisruptive environment for effective teaching and learning," according to state Board of Education guidelines.
Sam Dungan's suspension ends this week, the father says, but it will follow him as he applies for college.
"The bizarre thing about this is that they won't put this on his record. That's what they told us. But when you're applying, [colleges] ask you the question," James Dungan says.
Staunton and Virginia State Police used five police dogs for the Jan. 26 drug search. Four consent searches were conducted. Besides the Boy Scout pocketknife and Baileys Irish Cream, police stopped a 61-year-old woman who drove to the school with a BB gun in her car. A 37-year-old passenger in her car was drinking alcohol.
No drugs were found.
Contact Bertrand M. Gutierrez at
bgutierrez@newsvirginian.com
This story can be found at: http://www.newsvirginian.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WNV/MGArticle/WNV_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031780611944&path=&tacodalogin=no
The world has gone stark raving screaming mad.
Oh yeah, and oblivious of that quaint document with all those nasty rights in it too.
Reason #137 to Home School - - - totalitarian public school regimes.
Sue them.
Yeah, but it was a Boy Scout pocketknife.
Excellent! The plan is working!
The students do not revolt, despite the abuse. The population is now ready to accept the New National Order!
/Dr. Evil voice
It never ceases to amaze me that parents continue to send their kids to be educated by persons who repeatedly demonstrate their inability to exercise the faintest glimmer of common sense....
For three years in high school I wore a Buck 4 1/2 inch folding hunter in a belt sheath. And that was in the early 70s. Somehow I never stabbed anybody.
We send them to school so they can learn to think and they are dealt with by people who refuse to think. "Zero-Tolerance" is Zero-Sense
So this is what the NEA means when they talk about "local control?" I hate government schools. They know the quality of this kid, but are willing to ruin his record anyway.....disgusting.
That settles it right there...nuffin wrong with that dog's nose; it was dope residue.
I went to a catholic high school and carried a knife (not for self defense purposes either).
Not only didn't any teacher complain, it was undertstood some kids had shanks (i.e. boxcutters for afterschool jobs).
Somone explain to me how my school never had one incident while I was there with weapons, and yet public schools need zero tolerance.
Ah ha....a homophobic and religious pocketknife, eh?
I carried a pocket knife in grade school as apart of my Cub Scout uniform on uniform day.
In High School, we had real M-14s (three that fired full auto) we used to walk thru the halls with when we took them out shooting. Also you would see guns in the student’s gun racks in their vehicles in the school parking lot during hunting season.
We even fired Estes model rockets at my grade school playground.
Times sure have changed.
Sure enough, the principal told him it was not a good idea. So he quits carrying it.
Go back 60 years. My Father used to walk to school in a rural area. He often carried a .22 rifle so he could hunt on the way home. They did make him store it in a locked room. Probably to make sure no one stole it.
This has been around since Columbine. In many states possession of a weapon on school grounds, no matter what it may be, is an automatic felony that does show up on your record.
The other issue is the zero tolerance policy. Evidently VA is different from most states because in FL and GA there is no negotiating the terms unless you get a prosecutor with some common sense.
Best way to stop this s4!t would be for some 'good samaritan' to sprinkle just a bit of grass or whatever into the school officials cars. I wonder how they would like the Gestapo tactics?
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