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9/14/2007 3:32 AM

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ABethel Park High School student has been allowed to begin his senior year pending a court appeal of his expulsion for violating a school policy on weapons. His case is a flagrant example of what happens when "zero tolerance" becomes zero sense.

Last April, Tyler Stay, 17, was questioned about the disappearance of some magnesium tape from a chemistry lab. School authorities then searched the trunk of his car where they found two air guns and a drywall saw, the latter in an unopened package.

He was suspended at the time, and the school board put off action to expel him at its June and July meetings, which Stay's supporters announced they would attend. It finally took action at a special meeting Aug. 8 without notifying Stay's family, thus avoiding any unpleasant protests from the public.

Stay's parents are asking Allegheny County Court to set aside the expulsion. Among their arguments is that the car was searched without reasonable suspicion. Indeed, school officials said they made the search because Stay appeared nervous during questioning, which hardly strikes us as proper grounds for declaring him a suspect. (Another student later admitted to taking the tape.)

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But the propriety of the search strikes us as the least of the problems here. The federal Safe Schools Act, rushed into law in the hysteria that followed a series of highly publicized school shootings, provides expulsion for weapons violations but gives local schools the authority to modify the penalty.

Bethel Park's policy, though, says students possessing a weapon on school grounds, regardless of intent, will be expelled.

But intent is everything in a case like this. There is no reason to believe Stay planned to harm anyone or did anything except make an innocent mistake. No one is made any safer by kicking him out of school. He was originally questioned about the tape only because he was taking an advanced placement chemistry course in preparation for college, which hardly fits the profile of a teenage thug.

The search of Stay's car took place two days after the Virginia Tech massacre and just after a telephone bomb threat to the school, the second in less than a week. But jittery nerves are no excuse for a flawed policy. When school officials commit themselves to blindly follow rules regardless of circumstances, the most likely result is not safety but injustice.

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