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Schools take high road on pot

The Portland Tribune, Jul 17, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (4 Reader comments)

By now, everyone’s heard of the Vernonia elementary school principal who was caught smoking pot on a recent Friday evening at Fort Stevens State Park and cited for possession of a controlled substance.

After reviewing the case, the local school board deemed it a “single incident of poor judgment,” and the 41-year-old principal was allowed to keep his job.

The same thing could happen in Portland, because the school district has no set policy on teachers or administrators getting caught for pot possession, and apparently it hasn’t come up before.

“They could be terminated immediately if it was a chronic problem — ha-ha,” spokeswoman Sarah Carlin Ames says. “But you’d look at the principal’s performance on a case-by-case basis, and if it’s not affecting their work … we’d give them a plan of assistance, a last chance.”

The district does not drug-test its employees, she noted. What would she imagine they’d find if they did? “I hate to speculate,” she says, “but they’re baby boomers, a lot of them.”

Bridge path’s a real head-scratcher

Metro and TriMet officials say they still are studying the best route for a new transit bridge over the Willamette River between the South Waterfront area and inner Southeast Portland. Even a quick look at what’s already happening in the area suggests the decision’s already a done deal, however.

The original Caruthers Crossing route is too far away from the high-rise condos that developer Homer Williams and his friends are building.

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