Chilliwack students expelled for smoking pot on school trip
Posted October 2, 2013 8:50 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
CHILLIWACK (NEWS1130) – Just under a dozen Chilliwack high school students have been expelled for smoking pot on an overnight road trip.
The father of one of the students is outraged at the severity of the punishments.
The Sardis Secondary students admitted to school staff they smoked the pot while on the trip, outside of school hours.
Derrick Middleton’s son Zack was among them and when news filtered back to him, he couldn’t believe it.
“Ten out of the twelve kids admitted to smoking marijuana. One lied and the other one was telling the truth. So their reward for telling the truth, they were told at the end of the day that all twelve of them were expelled.”
He says the punishment, is far too heavy handed. “Most of them, this is a first offence. Basically they just threw the book at them.”
“Basically we feel that the new system, even in the justice system with restorative justice, they’re kept in the community and they have to meet with the people they perpetrated against. So why isn’t that same sort of system brought into the school system. This is a very old regulation according to the assistant superintendent and we want it changed.
It’s old and needs to be updated. Again I’m not condoning it, I’m not trying to minimize the offence, but it’s just extreme.”
Zack appealed to the assistant superintendent and was reinstated along with two others.
