AND A RESOLUTION WE CAN ALL SALUTE

I'm about a week late on this, but it's good news, so that deserves a place here. Last month I noted the case of a Lake Gibson High School student who was expelled for a year after he was caught with a pocketknife at a football game when he was trying to prevent an altercation between a friend and another person. The student had inadvertantly kept the knife strapped to his belt after he had been fishing earlier in the day.

Administrators twice upheld the expulsion. Although a hearing officer later recommended that the penalty be reduced to suspension, then-Superintendent Jim Thornhill chose to ignore it and upheld the explusion yet again. It was later scheduled for appeal to the full seven member school board, but a paperwork snafu in the Bartow administrative office postponed the hearing.

But in her first major decision since taking over the superintendent's job last month, Dr. Gail McKinzie overruled her predecessor and decided to allow the young man back to class, saying that discipline has been imposed on the student. However, Dr. Mckinzie's decision should not be taken as approval of having knives at school, basically that expulsion was too harsh for the situation. The decision was made a couple of days before the rescheduled hearing before the School Board was to take place.

It's always nice to know that common sense eventually prevails. If the School Board allows her enough latitude, she just may work out allright. Dr. McKinzie has been in the area for the past couple of months after relocating from her previous job as superintendent of a smaller district in suburban Chicago, working with Thornhill and the Board in the transition as the district's first appointed superintendent.