Sluggards Reprieved

To loaf like oafs, to nod like clods seemed the best idea to 40 students at Asbury Park High School, N. J. They were so lazy they would not even bother to be bad. Irked immeasurably by Asbury Park's 40 sluggards, Superintendent of Schools Amos E. Kraybill announced last week he would expel them. "They are wasting their time," he cried, "and their teachers' time and the taxpayers' money." Out they would go, he said, legally or illegally. The Board of Education backed Superintendent Kraybill. But soon Superintendent Kraybill changed his mind. He reprieved the 40 laggards, announced he would consult with their parents. Meanwhile, said he, they had been frightened into some slight improvement.

Have school boards the right to oust lazy or stupid students? Many a tax-paying parent might feel that, having paid his money, he has his rights. Last May this question interested one Jean West, 19, freshman at the Teachers' College of Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) which is State-supported. Suspended for failure to maintain a required standing, Miss West sought to restrain Miami University from expelling her. Her counsel argued that higher education is for everyone, that Miss West, daughter of a taxpayer, had a right to hers. She won her case, but a higher court reversed the decision last December. Reason: a pupil who falls below a set standard must not be allowed to retard his fellows.

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