How many times have you been hanging out with your friends and one of them says, "Stick out your hand," 'cuz they're gonna share some Good and Plentys with you or the like... Or that's what you think they're gonna share.
And you, unthinkingly, comply, putting out your hand. Indeed, why would one even think to do any different? I wouldn't have.
So the girl got something inappropriate in her hand, and she gave it back. This really should be a non-issue. Even if she knowingly received something inappropriate, in which case she probably thought better of it ... she still gave it back. In the latter case, maybe there are some admonitions to be handed out, but it still doesn't even approach giving her a week's suspension for "non-compliance" with her school's zero-tolerance drug policy.
Resorting to these kinds of draconian measures too many times will eventually backfire. Ultimately, parents will end up losing all respect for the school systems in question, perhaps even for public education per se across the country.
I agree that if the school continues to nit-pick and expel students to the point of disrupting the kids education then the parents should step in and ask for a meeting.
In high school we use to go out into the parking lot and sit in our cars and smoke (if we had one). One morning on the loud speaker the principle announced that kids will not be allowed to hangout in the parking lot and will have to move to the field or somewhere else (more visible I think was the reason) during lunch.
Well after we had lunch we went to the field to smoke and then we talked about taking a weekend trip and I mentioned I had a map in my car. We headed to my car and the 3 of us were nabbed by the principle and got suspended for a day. It sucked and we were not hanging out there we were just getting a map. But we didn’t try to get our parents to sue the state or the school. We took our lumps and the next time we listened a little more closely to the rules. No need to spend 4 million dollars of tax payers money, involve the press and send the message that we can interpret the rules at will.
Maybe the girl could take the week to brush up on her studies and prepare for finals or visit colleges. Her time should be leveraged to her benefit.
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