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Court upholds 12-year-old’s suspension for staring

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The parents of a 12-year-old Ohio student are disappointed in the court ruling that will uphold their son’s suspension for staring at a classmate last year.

The student was suspended from St. Gabriel Consolidated, a private Catholic school, last September after he was said to be intimidating a female student by staring at her, reports Fox19.

Court documents show that the female student said she “felt fearful”, which is what lead to the suspension.

“I never knew she was scared cause she was laughing,” he wrote in a letter of apology to his classmate.

The 12-year-old said he was simply engaged in a staring contest and that his classmate was participating in the game.

“I understand I done the wrong thing that will never happen again. I will start to think before I do so I am not in this situation.”

Still, the suspension was enacted. The principal handles all final rulings when it comes to disciplinary action, as outlined by the school’s policy.

The male student’s parents are fighting to have the suspension removed from his permanent record because they feel it is unfair to document that their son was “intentionally intimidating” another student.

The boy’s mother, Candice Tolbert, said she feels it unjust that the school doesn’t have a framework for discipline, handling it on a case-by-case basis.

While her son is black and the girl he is accused of intimidating is white, Tolbert is not saying the decision is about race. She does feel that her son has been treated differently and received a harsher punishment for his actions in comparison to other kids at school.

“The same girl that accused my son of this act of perception of intimidation, aggressively poured milk on someone else’s lunch,” Tolbert told Fox19. “When she did that there was no penalties for that. She received nothing for that.”

The family plans to file an appeal to get the suspension wiped from their son’s record.