Nightmare At Golden High School

Below Kay describes the Zero Tolerance experience their family endured following her daughter Ami's lapse in judgment involving experimentation with Marijuana off school property. Fortunately the administrators at Golden High were as inept as they were Draconian. They failed to provide Ami a timely "due process hearing." And because Kay and her husband got an attorney (quickly), the attorney recognized the screw up and saved Ami from expulsion.

A unique attribute of this story/nightmare is the fact that this occurred off campus, during lunch period at an "open school." While the incident occurred close to school, it was not on school grounds or during a "school sponsored activity." Nonetheless, the school attempted to automatically expel Ami.

Had this case gone to court I believe it would have been reversed. CRS 22-33-106 calls for automatic expulsion for the sale of marijuana on school grounds (click here to see for yourself). It seems pretty obvious to me that the Colorado Legislature has set a benchmark for automatic expulsions involving Marijuana. Ami's offense clearly did not meet this benchmark therefore the punishment should be something less than automatic expulsion (especially since it was the first time she ever got in trouble for anything!) This logic is probably too deep for Zero Tolerance Administrators.

Kay's Story:

Our daughter had never gotten in trouble at school before, but did a stupid thing during lunch time off campus, and got caught doing it. The high school has an open campus policy, so leaving the school grounds was okay, but our daughter and two other girls got caught smoking marijuana. Our
daughter admitted bringing the marijuana, one of the other girls brought the pipe. Since sharing controlled substances is considered distribution, my daughter was given four weeks of suspension followed by a recommendation for expulsion. By recommendation, what they really mean is expelled.

The administrators of the school and the district do not want to talk to the parents or the student, much less work with them to address the situation. It's as though the student is merely a defective widget on the factory line, to be tossed out. The high school principal wouldn't even meet with us, the student's parents. He told me on the phone that an expulsion was required by Colorado state law (not true) and referred us to the Area Administrator of Suspensions and Expulsions. He, too, was not interested in talking to us. At this point, we hired an attorney and I advise anyone who finds themselves a similar situation to do likewise.

On the other hand, there were people in the school who were sympathetic, supportive, and understanding. Unfortunately, they are not the administraters. We spoke with Ami's teachers at various times through this ordeal and they were wonderful, supportive, and understanding.

The Colorado Revised Statute says expulsion is mandatory for the sale of controlled substances on campus or at school-sanctioned activities. The Jefferson County R-1 School District Code of Conduct takes it a step further by calling for mandatory expulsion for distribution of controlled substances on campus and at school-sanctioned activities. One line of the defense was whether or not lunch time off campus at an open campus school is a school-sanctioned event. In order to cover themselves, the school district also cited a different part of the policy stating that the principal may recommend expulsion for behavior on or off campus which is detrimental to the safety and welfare of other students.

We had a hearing with an "independent" hearing officer, hired by the school district, on what turned out to be the day of the Columbine High School shootings. At the start of the hearing, our attorney brought up the fact that the school district's policy states that a hearing will be held within fourteen days of the first day of suspension. It was now day sixteen. The hearing officer said that there was some flexibility there. The rest of our daughter's defense was based on our daughter's good character, academic record, and other stressful situations which influenced her behavior. About two thirds of the way through our defense, the hearing officer brought up the fourteen day issue, and instructed the district's attorney to look into that. The next day, our attorney received a fax from their attorney that, in fact, our daughter's procedural due process rights were violated, the hearing should have been held within the fourteen day limit, and she should return to school. However, the letter added, the district still believed she should be expelled.

In addition to the school's punishment, my daughter had to appear in city court for her citation for possession. She was treated fairly. In one sense, we were glad that our daughter was caught so this behavior can be addressed; but we felt that the school's actions were too extreme and made a bad situation worse. We fought the expulsion for all the obvious reasons, but whatever the outcome, we wanted to force the school district to look at her as an individual, not a statistic. We would have liked to win because the school district saw the error of their ways, but we won on a technicality instead. At least, our daughter got back in school, where she thrives.

Sincerely,

Kay