URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n510/a01.html
Newshawk: Amanda
Pubdate: Wed, 12 Apr 2000
Source: Mobile Register (AL)
Copyright: 2000 Mobile Register.
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Address: PO Box 2488, Mobile, AL 36652
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Author: Christine Haughney, Staff Reporter
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.
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