Teachers Take Aim at Weapons : Moorpark: They urge automatic expulsion of any student caught with a device intended to harm someone.

Alarmed by reports of weapons on campus and a series of violent encounters at Moorpark schools, more than 200 teachers have signed a petition urging the school district to adopt a “zero tolerance” policy automatically expelling any student caught with weapons.

Knives have been found on students in four incidents since the school year began and on two occasions students have attacked teachers, according to the teachers’ union.

Students caught with weapons automatically face a closed-door expulsion hearing with the Moorpark Unified School District Board of Education, but board members are not obligated to expel a student if they believe such action is inappropriate.

The board’s Nov. 1 decision not to expel a 14-year-old boy caught carrying a knife at Chaparral Middle School brought the issue to a head, board member Tom Baldwin said. Teachers submitted their petition, signed by nearly all the district’s 255 teachers, at Tuesday night’s board meeting.

“It makes sense, but to be honest I still have to think about this,” Baldwin said. “My worst nightmare of course is that a student that we don’t expel comes back to school with a knife or some other weapon and someone gets hurt or killed.”

When the 14-year-old Chaparral student returned to campus, seventh-grade teacher Lucy Davis said she felt the school board had sent students the wrong message.

“He was walking around bragging that he got away with it,” Davis said. “Just the fact that he was back at all made me irate. This sends the message that our safety is less important than his right to a second chance.”

But school board members said there were extenuating circumstances, and while they could not comment on the specifics of the case, they said the boy was not intending to hurt anyone.

The board heard the case of the 14-year-old Chaparral student on the same day it considered the fate of a 15-year-old Moorpark High School student who brandished a knife in class. In the high school case, the board decided to expel the student for at least the rest of the semester.

“These are two very different cases,” outgoing board Chairman Pam Castro said. “Nothing is black and white, that’s something I’ve learned after five years on the board.”

In the case involving the high school student, the boy actually threatened another student with his knife, while the Chaparral student merely had the knife in his possession, Castro said.

Even the high school student drew support from at least one teacher, who argued that the boy had been provoked into a confrontation.

The board’s decision was based on whether there was intent to harm.

“Did they even have knowledge that they have the weapon on them?” Castro asked. “We’ve had cases where weapons were placed in students’ backpacks without their knowledge. . . . More importantly did they have intent to use the weapon?”

Over the years the school district has expelled students for carrying knives, a tennis ball filled with match heads, a sock filled with hair-setting gel and numerous other devises students had either used or planned to use to harm others.

Board member Clint Harper agreed with Castro that the board should have some flexibility. Harper described a scenario where a student who went camping on the weekend might forget that he had a pocket knife in his backpack.

“We should have flexibility for those type of occurrences,” he said.

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But Harper said he would like to improve on the process by including teachers. Currently, a student’s right to privacy prevents the board from seeing the youth’s disciplinary history or even the student’s grades, he said.

Harper wants to use teachers to set up discipline committees at each school, which could make recommendations to the board in cases such as the backpack incidents.

“Teachers have a lot more direct knowledge of the student’s behavior,” he said. “Their recommendations would carry a great amount of weight.”

The school board will consider the zero tolerance policy and Harper’s proposal at its next meeting, Dec. 13.