Inuvik (Mar 01/04) - Boarding home parent Harry Elias wants to give kids a second chance.

Elias told the Beaufort Delta Education Council he is considering officially changing the Zero Tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol in the boarding home. His message came during the council's regular meeting in Inuvik, Feb. 18.

Under the current policy a student caught using drugs or alcohol is removed from the boarding home until the end of the semester. If they're caught in the second semester they could loose their year, said Elias.

The boarding home is used to house up to 12 high school students from communities without high school programs of their own, such as Sachs Harbour, Paulatuk and Tsiigehtchic.

This year Elias had to send three students home within the first two months of school for using alcohol and drugs.

"We ran into a rough time," said James Anderson, BDEC superintendent of schools, of the students who were removed.

The boarding house usually has between one and two incidents every semester, said Anderson. But not everybody gets sent home.

"It's hard to have a zero tolerance policy because there is no gray, just black and white, and sometimes the situation is gray," he said.

The facility often follows a two strike rule even though it's not officially part of policy.

Two strike rule

Elias thinks in the new policy, students should face a two-week suspension from the home on the first offence and removal from the home for the rest of the school year for the second offence.

"I think students should have a second chance," Elias told the board.

One board member suggested grounding or counselling as an alternative to eviction. Elias said he's tried both with little success.

"They didn't think they had a problem," he said of the students. "They just didn't take (counselling) seriously."

Although he wants to slightly change the policy he doesn't feel keeping the kids at the home is a fair solution and neither is having them return over and over again.

"We don't want a revolving door," he said. "I think it would jeopardize the other students if others could stay under the influence."

Eighteen-year-old Catherine Kuptana lived in the boarding house for more than a year while going to school at Samuel Hearne secondary school. While Kuptana missed her home in Sachs Harbour, she found the boarding house to be a safe place.

"I like it, it was good," she said from her Sachs Harbour home.

She remembers a "few times" when alcohol and drugs became a problem for her house-mates, but she didn't find the incidents disrupted her schooling or made her feel unsafe.