Local school boards have a great deal of leeway in determining whether students are expelled from school, and the Roanoke County School Board appears to go out of its way to keep from expelling them.

Of 28 expulsion hearings it held last year, only two actually resulted in expulsion, according to Mike Stovall, the school board's chairman.

"We want to educate them if we can," he said.

That may be good news to three Roanoke County students who face an expulsion hearing May 23.

Cave Spring High School seniors Tyler Moses Moore Jr. and Sean McGhee, both 18, and Hidden Valley High School junior Brittany Goldberg, 17, all were arraigned Sunday on charges stemming from an incident in New York City.

The students are accused of throwing paint cans from the roof of a 20-story hotel, causing more than $1,500 in damage to police vehicles and an officer's personal vehicle, and splashing paint in one officer's eye.

The students are charged with criminal mischief in the second degree, a felony, and with two misdemeanors: assault in the third degree; and criminal trespass in the second degree. A preliminary hearing is set for June 15.

The students are suspended from school until their expulsion hearing, Stovall said.

If the school board votes to expel them, they won't be able to return to county schools for 365 days, by state law.

If that happens, they may seek other means of education, which could be another public school, a private school, adult education courses or an out-of-school program.

Their options would be limited in the Roanoke Valley, where schools are unlikely to accept a student that has been expelled elsewhere.

"School divisions do not typically take students who have been expelled from another system," said Dana Thurston, spokeswoman for the Roanoke school system.

John Busher, assistant superintendent of Botetourt County schools, said that if a student is expelled from another school division, "they're not coming in."

The same goes for Roanoke County, Stovall said.

Wayne Tripp, superintendent of Salem schools, and Ray-Eric Correia, president of the private Roanoke Catholic School, said each student's acceptance is determined on a case-by-case basis.

However, Correia said, at Roanoke Catholic "behavior is a big part of things and the willingness to behave."

For seniors McGhee and Moore, expulsion could keep them out of college.

At Virginia Tech, for example, acceptance is contingent on receipt of a diploma, said Norrine Bailey Spencer, associate provost and director of undergraduate admissions. If a senior can't get that diploma, she said, "then we will rescind our offer of admission."

Stovall wouldn't say whether McGhee's and Moore's graduation will be affected.

Other cases, Spencer said, "we handle individually." If a student is expelled but later returns to school and earns a diploma, she said, Virginia Tech staff will interview the student, his or her guidance counselor, and other school officials.

The students, of course, will face these issues only if they are expelled.

In 26 of 28 expulsion hearings held last school year, the Roanoke County School Board chose to put students on a contract rather than expel them.

Stovall wouldn't say what may be included in a contract, only that the board "can make requests of those students in the contracts."

The Roanoke school system uses a similar method, Thurston said.

Last year, five of 16 expulsion hearings ended with a student being expelled.

In one case, the student was issued long-term suspension.

The other 10 "were expulsions held in abeyance," Thurston said. "Abeyance means that students are placed in an alternate setting under a strict behavior contract. Any violation to this contract would automatically result in a reinstatement of the 365-day expulsion."

By comparison, all eight expulsion hearings convened last year in Salem ended in expulsion. Most were gun-, drug- or alcohol-related, Tripp said.

Students do things that are wrong, he said, "but you have to understand there are consequences."

In Roanoke County, students who adhere to their contracts may remain in school -- either their home school or Roland E. Cook, an alternative school shared by Roanoke and Bedford counties.

Asked why the school board would choose to give students a second chance, Stovall said: "Because they deserve it. They deserve for the school division not to turn their back on them."

"There are a lot of different avenues we can take," he said of the school board, adding that "a lot of our decision hinges on the attitude and the remorsefulness of the student."