Phila. district defends expulsion policy

City and state education officials yesterday defended the Philadelphia School District's limited expulsion of students who bring weapons to schools, dismissing a complaint from a school-safety expert as a misreading of federal law.

Jack Stollsteimer, the state's safe-schools advocate, alleged in a four-page memo that the district had routinely violated the federal Gun-Free Schools Act, which mandates a year's expulsion for students caught with firearms on school property. State law extends the policy to apply to all weapons.

A complaint has been filed with the U.S. Attorney's Office, and federal officials have been gathering information on the district's expulsion policy in response, but it is not clear whether those inquiries will lead to a formal investigation. The district could lose millions in federal aid if it is found to have violated the federal act, Stollsteimer said.

With the district considering a new violence policy, district officials took sharp exception to Stollsteimer's conclusions, saying that the chief executive officer had discretion when it comes to expelling students and, instead of expulsion, typically responded by immediately transferring students caught with weapons to special disciplinary schools.

"The effect of 'expulsion' is being exercised every day," Fred Farlino, the district's interim chief operating officer, said, referring to students sent to disciplinary schools.

He said the district's School Safety Advisory Committee - of which he is a member - was considering recommending to the School Reform Commission that a more formal expulsion process be started again to address concerns about compliance with the law.

Stollsteimer, a former assistant U.S. attorney, has alleged that though the law allows the district's chief executive officer to use discretion in individual cases, the district wrongly employs the practice for nearly all students and has expelled few as a result.

"The U.S. Department of Education guidelines specifically state that the case-by-case exception is not to be used to circumvent the mandatory expulsion requirement," he wrote in his Jan. 15 memo to the commission, which was first reported by the Philadelphia Daily News.

Stollsteimer said the district had stopped short of its responsibility. The district expelled no students last school year and has not expelled any so far this year.

In fact, Stollsteimer said, the district has expelled only two of 22 students involved in gun cases in the last three years.