JACKSON FAMILY QUESTIONS APPLICATION OF TARDY RULE

Even the good reverend will have to admit that sometimes it just doesn't pay to tell the truth.

That's the message Jackson school officials imparted on the Rev. Eddie Dodson, whose son, along with another teen, were disciplined because Dodson overslept one morning and didn't get them to school on time, contend the reverend and his wife Denise.

The Dodsons' son Andy, a ninth grader at Jackson Junior High School, and Tim Warner, a junior at the high school and who is a ward of the family, will both get a 2 percent grade reduction in two of their classes for being two and a half hours late to school March 7.

According to Denise Dodson, Warner is "passing by the skin of his teeth. This 2 percent can really hurt Tim (Warner)."

The punishment is part of a policy adopted eight years ago in order to curb tardiness for "inexcusable" reasons, said high school Principal Vernon Huck.

But Dodson says that school officials told him that if "I would have written a note saying we were taking care of personal business it would have been all right."

Nonetheless, the school board upheld the punishment.

"I don't care whose fault it is. The school board has a policy and they're going to stick with it," Huck said. "If he wants to lie and his kids know about it, that's up to him."

Dodson is now threatening to file suit. He has asked the American Liberties Union to get involved.

The ACLU's affiliate of Eastern Missouri will discuss the matter at its next meeting in April, according to volunteer Frank Armstrong, who is not a lawyer.

"It seems to me that it kind of backfired in this situation. I think the administrators should be a little more flexible. I would think a reasonable person would not want to punish the kids," said Armstrong, a former St. Louis school teacher.

State school laws allow school boards to reduce students' grades for excessive absences or tardiness, says Mark Van Zandt, director of school laws at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

"This involves a dilemma. The child is submitted to disciplinary action that is not the child's fault. The district can take the action even though that would probably not be fair," Van Zandt said. "This is where school officials have to use good judgment."

Area school districts have an assortment of policies regarding tardiness. At Cape Girardeau Central Junior High School, students are not punished for being late until their third offense. Then, they must serve detention. However, their grades are not reduced, said Principal Lanny Barnes. The city high school has a similar policy.

"It's the principle of the whole thing," said Dodson. "I'm so incensed I want to pursue it as far as I can. I feel this is a personal violation of parental control over a child."