Schools Take Hard Line on Weapons

Renee Benson used an emotional plea. Vickie Yates used an attorney.

Both women tried to dissuade the Los Angeles Board of Education last week from expelling their children for having weapons at school, a problem that has prompted tougher punishments in an effort to stem campus shootings.

“She made a stupid mistake but sometimes children of 13 make stupid mistakes,” Benson said, her eyes brimming with tears. Benson’s 13-year-old daughter admits she brought a BB gun that looked like a revolver to Lawrence Middle School in Woodland Hills.

Yates’ 14-year-old son admits he knew there was a 9-millimeter handgun in his locker at Wright Middle School in Westchester.

The two cases, typical of the expulsions reviewed by the board every two weeks, underscore the rigidity of the school board’s policy, critics say. Board members find themselves with little or no leeway in weapons cases, they say.

Benson’s daughter was expelled. Yates’ attorney, Wendy Segall, had better luck, in part because Yates’ son says he had not even touched the gun. Segall persuaded the board to delay a decision on the case until mid-September, as well as review a portion of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s expulsion policy.

Board members who support the 15-month-old policy say they would rather expel students for bringing guns to school than reassign them to other campuses, which is what the district did for years.

Besides, they say, students can reapply for admission to Los Angeles schools, usually within six months of expulsion.

But the board is not unanimous on the issue. “The cost for these kids is just too high,” said school board member Jeff Horton, who opposes the district’s expulsion policy for students under 16. “Kicking a kid out of school--in my mind--only encourages antisocial behavior.”

State and district officials say they have little choice. They do not want to reassign students to other campuses if there is a chance of violence.

“The reality is you have to have a rigid policy because (weapons possession) is so prevalent,” said Maureen DiMarco, Gov. Wilson’s secretary of education and child development. “Certainly in Los Angeles where they’ve had students tragically killed with weapons, I think you have to have strong policies.”

The board policy, strengthened more than a year ago, requires students who bring guns to school--including BB guns and stun guns--to be expelled from the district. Previously, those students could be assigned to other campuses within the district.

The state law governing expulsions is less severe. It allows districts to either expel students or to transfer them.

During the 1993-94 school year, the board expelled 166 students for bringing guns to school. In 1992-93, the board expelled 256 students.

The board excused just two students from the expulsion policy in the last 18 months. Both cases involved BB guns found in the students’ lockers. The board--and the officials who review each case--found that the students had intended to inform authorities about the weapons.

District officials say Benson’s daughter--known to the school board as Case 494--and Yates’ son--known as Case 581--are typical of the dozens of expulsion cases they review. Both students had minor behavioral problems and received mostly Cs and Ds.

In addition to their trouble with school district authorities, the two face charges in the Juvenile Court system. If found guilty of bringing firearms to school, a felony, they could be sentenced to a maximum of four years detention.

Both say they are, at most, guilty of being loyal to their friends, even for the wrong reasons. Their parents say the children did not have the emotional maturity to turn in their friends.

Vickie Yates’ son said his best friend brought a handgun and bullets to school on May 24. He said his friend showed him the gun before classes began.

The boy told Yates’ son that he needed it for protection because he had been threatened by 18- and 19-year-old gang members.

“I said, ‘No matter what you do, don’t put it in my locker,’ ” said Yates’ son, who shared a locker with the boy in violation of school rules. But after lunch, Yates’ son went to his locker and saw the gun. He said he told his friend to remove the weapon.

But the friend ignored Yates’ son and boasted to other kids about the handgun, even showing it to classmates. Then somebody told. Yates’ son was taken to the office, arrested by police and then kicked out of school. His friend also was arrested and, eventually, expelled.

Since then, Yates’ son has spent his time playing computer games, walking his dog and thinking about what’s next. His mother keeps a chalkboard list of his chores posted in the kitchen, that includes homework and cleaning his room. At the top, she wrote, “I love you.”

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The eighth-grader says he has learned his lesson. “I don’t care who my friends are--I will tell next time,” he said. “I don’t ever want to go through this again. I would tell someone immediately.”

His mother, single and a legal secretary in Century City, said she hired an attorney after talking to the lawyers at her firm. Yates said she decided to take their advice, even though hiring an attorney will cost her at least $1,500, which is creating a financial hardship.

“He’s going to get a job and pay this back,” Yates said of her son.

So far, Yates’ efforts have paid off. Segall, the attorney, is arguing that the youth’s expulsion be overturned based on a legal technicality involving the definition of possession. The boy, she says, should not have been considered to be in possession of the weapon because it was in a locker he shared with another student.

After a lengthy dialogue between Segall, the district’s lawyers and other officials, the board Monday night took five votes on the issue and ended up agreeing to delay the case and review that section of the policy.

While the board debated the youth’s case for about an hour, Renee Benson says she was ignored. Benson, who said she waited six hours before she could speak to the board last week, gave an impassioned plea, ending with tears rolling down her face.

“Is it your goal to make my daughter a gang member or a criminal by turning her out into the street?” she said. “I am asking every single one of you to rescue my child and allow her back into school.”

It was her second attempt to get the board to overturn her daughter’s expulsion, but the board swiftly and without comment turned her down.

The board action means Benson’s daughter cannot attend any district school for at least six months. After that she can apply for re-admission, and the decision would be up to the board.

The girl says a friend handed her the BB gun before she got on the school bus in April. The girl says she did not want to take the weapon, but her friend asked her to keep it until after school.

When she got to school, Benson’s daughter said she let another friend borrow her jacket--with the empty BB gun in the pocket. The friend showed it to other students and before long, the girl was pulled out of class and arrested.

Her mother says she is placing her daughter in a special county-run school for the time being.

“She’s worth saving--she’s not violent,” Renee Benson said. “. . . (But) their policy makes no provision for stupid mistakes.”