A high school student in Louisiana has been expelled from her school for one year because she had Advil pills in her purse.
Sophomore Amanda Stiles was expelled from Parkway High School in Shreveport, La., after a teacher searched her purse because she was suspected of being among a group of students smoking cigarettes on school grounds, the Shreveport Times reported.
Advertisement - story continues below
"I think a one-year expulsion for an over-the-counter medicine is pretty severe," Stiles' mother, Kelly Herpin, told the paper.
Herpin and Stiles appealed to a school board committee last night, but the panel and the full board voted unanimously to uphold the one-year expulsion.
"I'm not really sure at this point what we'll do," Herpin told the Times. "I'm going to have to talk to my husband, and we're going to have to make some plans. I'm not sure we could afford a private school. We've been looking at moving to another area."
Stiles said she carried the over-the-counter medicine because of frequent headaches, but the Bossier Parish School District maintains it is following a state law barring drugs on campus and its own "zero-tolerance" policy.
Advertisement - story continues below
"I just never thought about the fact that I could be searched," Stiles said, according to the Shreveport paper. "I think we're old enough to know how many [pills] we can take without overdosing or being in danger."
After the appeals hearing, Superintendent Ken Kruithof said state law mandates a one-year suspension for drugs, but he did not know whether it covered nonprescription drugs as well. Betty McCauley, Bossier schools student services director, said the law includes nonprescription drugs, but she said having medication on campus doesn't automatically lead to a one-year expulsion.
"After an investigation and a hearing then, if necessary, punishment is administered. It could be no punishment," she said.
If Stiles wants to pursue the case further, she must sue the school district.
The Times said, so far this school year, officials report 18 students were sent to the system's alternative school for possessing "pills."
Herpin said she considers her daughter an "average" student in terms of grade and behavior and had never been expelled, according to the paper. Superintendent Kruithof said Stiles had other disciplinary incidents but did not know if they were serious enough to warrant suspension.
Advertisement - story continues below
Related stories:
4th-grader suspended for gun shell in pocket
Zero-tolerance policies victimize 'good' kids
