Marijuana Policy Project

Honesty and hard work—and the help of a lawyer—helped Maria McGrath stay in public schools against the odds.

As a student last year at Milwaukee's High School of the Arts, McGrath, 16, was caught with enough marijuana to send her straight to an expulsion hearing.

At first, it looked like McGrath could be kicked out of Milwaukee Public Schools until she turned 18. But McGrath was allowed to stay in the district at a charter school. Otherwise "I would have had to go to a private school, which I was not going to do," McGrath said.

Like hundreds of other students, McGrath was caught in a system that is increasingly rigid when it comes to drugs, violence and weapons.

The number of expulsions in Milwaukee Public Schools grew from 101 in the 1995-'96 school year to 309 last year. Statewide, the number rose from 1,394 in 2002-'03 to 1,637 in 2003-'04. While the district's expulsion policies have not changed, urban culture and administrators' perceptions have.

Officials and educators attribute the sharp rise in expulsions—in Milwaukee and nationally—largely to societal trends that have pushed more of the problems of the street into the schools. They also cite increasingly safety-conscious and fearful administrators who put more emphasis on the zero part of zero-tolerance than they might have in the past.

The trend has supporters and critics.

"Our goal is to keep schools safe," says Hughes George, the director of student services at MPS. "If students break the rules, they put other students and staff in jeopardy."

He points out that the length of expulsions varies considerably, and more and more of those expelled are offered drug counseling or placements in alternative programs for students who have had discipline problems.

But Robin Shellow, a local attorney who represents a handful of students in expulsion cases each year, says the incidents need to be scrutinized in more depth than the current system sometimes allows. In some cases "the student who is in treatment and is demonstrably abstinent (from drugs) . . . are able to go back and spread the message of how their lives got screwed up, and how they fixed them."

McGrath thinks the expulsion process in MPS is fair. She said she was caught with "two nicks" of marijuana. The MPS report mentions 1.138 grams.

"There are some (violations) that are cut and dried," George said. "Weapons are cut and dried. Drugs of more than 0.5 grams and above are an automatic expulsion hearing."

George and MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos said one key reason for the increase is that more students are getting caught with marijuana.

"I think the schools are a reflection of society," Andrekopoulos said. "There might be more of an acceptance for marijuana in the broader community than there was years ago."

Last school year, the three offenses that led to the most expulsions were drugs, knives and battery. At 40% of the total expulsions, drugs accounted for the largest share.

Milwaukee school board member Jeff Spence thinks that the expulsion policies are straightforward, and he believes the rise in numbers signifies an increasing number of families "living in distress."

Avoiding, not solving

But board member Peter Blewett said he's "not sure if zero tolerance is the best thing." Some kids who are expelled "get less instruction, which seems to me to be the wrong way to go," Blewett added, saying the families of expelled kids are often those who are already "disconnected" from the community and various social support structures.

George said the number of students who are expelled but kept in an educational program has been rising. Between last July and this month, for instance, 120 students were expelled with services, and 34 without. Those expelled with services are placed in programs such as St. Charles Behavioral Reassignment Program.

Joel Rynders, a social worker who helps on Shellow's expulsion cases, says "if you expel everyone who brought weed to school, you wouldn't have much of a school."

Rynders says tragedies such as Columbine have led to a "knee-jerk" reaction among some school administrators, who process expulsion cases more by the book than they might have in the past.

"Our experience is that when an expulsion panel is willing to take a couple of hours rather than crank the cases out in 30 or 45 minutes, they make pretty good judgments," he said.

Most people agree that the rise in expulsions cannot be traced to a single root cause. Sue Birkholder, the principal of an alternative school in Staunton, Va., that serves kids who have had discipline problems, says there is clearly more gang activity, more drugs and more weapons in the schools.

But she also said there are "changes in perceptions by school board members of the dangers some of these kids present in a school setting."

In a thoughtful statement to the panel, McGrath described what led to her drug use, and efforts to get her life on track.

"I completely separated myself from my friends who take drugs," she said. "I am going to drug rehab and family counseling. I am having conversations instead of confrontations. My parents and I have been speaking, not arguing. I have been honest."

In the end, McGrath said going through the expulsion process ended up being a good thing in her life since she is at a school she's much happier with. Alliance School focuses on students who felt alienated or bullied in their previous schools.

If expelled, she would have wound up at "a private school, but I probably would have stuck with my lifestyle of drugs," she said.