It was a shocking development in July 1985 when then-Cambria County Judge Joseph F. O'Kicki jailed and fined all nine members of the Penn Cambria School Board on criminal-contempt charges stemming from a court order that board members chose not to obey.

It is commendable that Butler County Judge Marilyn Horan has not resorted to a similar drastic step in response to the Slippery Rock School Board's decision not to obey an order Horan issued April 5 involving a Slippery Rock Middle School sixth-grader who allegedly wrote a bomb threat; the board couched its refusal amid an immediate appeal of the order. However, the judge shouldn't allow the case to languish unresolved for a lengthy period of time.

In addition to the threat itself, a student's education is at the center of the case and that must not be regarded lightly, even amid a school district zero-tolerance policy in regard to such incidents.

The student's fate should not be subjected to a protracted period of legal wrangling that keeps her educational status in limbo for months, a year or more — which is not outside the realm of possibility, as appeals oftentimes go.

Considering all of the information that has been revealed in the aftermath of the expulsion of the student — Autum Bennett — on Jan. 22, it is possible that the wrong person has been accused of the threat of which Bennett, 12, currently is the suspect, although criminal charges have not been filed against her. And, without evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Bennett wrote the bomb threat note, the school board should, in response to Horan's order, have opted for the principle of innocent until proven guilty, rather than guilty until proven innocent.

That means that she should have been allowed into class when she arrived at school on April 6 with Horan's order in hand.

It ought to be troubling to Horan that the board's refusal to allow Bennett to return to school during the time the appeal is being resolved has in fact defied the seriousness of her order. If a court order has no teeth, Horan shouldn't have issued it.

School board members are, for the most part, ordinary citizens with a desire to ensure quality education. As a part of that, they supposedly serve the interests of their constituents and of the children of their school district.

Without a law degree, they must rely on the legal representation employed to advise them, and it must be presumed that is what Slippery Rock board members are doing in this matter. They undoubtedly are attempting to make the right decisions in this case even as it becomes increasingly complex.

However, that does not guarantee that the board's stance is correct and, by the board's decision Monday to bring an additional lawyer into the case to investigate new information, the board has made the implication that it might now not be 100 percent comfortable about what it has decided to date.

In the Bennett case, two handwriting analyses at independent labs paid for by Bennett's father concluded that she did not write the bomb note. Important issues also have been raised about the way Bennett was interrogated by police.

The fact that Bennett is an honor student who has earned certificates for attendance and citizenship doesn't guarantee her innocence, but it is important to notice that Horan's ruling states that the school district did not have substantial evidence to find a violation of the district policy on terroristic threats.

Horan should not allow her initial finding — and Bennett's in-school education — to be lost amid a lengthy appeals timetable, even though Bennett is receiving her education via a cyber school.

Cambria County's Judge O'Kicki had the Penn Cambria School Board members, dressed in suits, jackets and ties, marched to the Cambria County Prison. Horan should call Slippery Rock board members and their lawyers to her courtroom and establish parameters for the handling of the Bennett case while the appeal and the case remain unresolved.

Whether Bennett is innocent or guilty, that is the right stance at this juncture.