Are strict suspension rules hurting students?
Published: Sunday, Dec. 11, 2011 - 5:09 am
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- As he waited for a disciplinary appeal hearing to begin this fall, the sixth-grade student began sobbing.
He was barely 11 years old. He was slated to be expelled again - for a year - from his elementary school district, this time for alleged sexual battery and obscenity.
The offense: "Slapping a girl on the buttock and running away laughing."
For the local school board, the punishment fit the crime.
The boy's pro bono attorney, Tim McKinley, was appalled.
"This, on his record, puts him right up there next to the kid who raped somebody behind the backstop," said McKinley, who spent 26 years as an FBI agent.
Having lost twice at the local level, McKinley will now appeal the boy's expulsion on Dec. 13 before
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/11/4115082/are-strict-suspension-rules-hurting.html#ixzz1gEqyvDPx
