JUDGE RULES AGAINST STUDENT'S CHALLENGE

A contender for valedictorian at Gulf Shores High cannot return to classes to finish her senior year after school officials applied a zero-tolerance policy and expelled her for having marijuana fragments on the floor of her car, according to a federal judge's ruling Tuesday.

Relatives of Virginia "Jenny" Hammock say they are still deciding whether she will complete her senior year at an alternative school or obtain a GED from the state.

During a drug search of the Gulf Shores High School parking lot in February, drug dogs barked at her parked Toyota 4-Runner.  When officers searched the car, they found plant fragments which tested as marijuana.  Under the Baldwin County system's zero-tolerance drug policy, school officials suspended, then expelled her.  Her parents filed a suit in federal court asking that Hammock receive the right to return to school.  Hammock, her parents said, had been chosen as homecoming queen, newspaper and yearbook editor.  Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, where Hammock plans to attend in the fall, said it would accept a General Education Development certificate if the school did not readmit her, her mother said.

[Remainder snipped]