TRI In The News
Grieving Father: When You Can't Beat 'em...
7/21/2011
TRI IN THE NEWS: GRIEVING FATHER: WHEN YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM...
From One News Now
Original article available here.
After expulsion from high school compelled a 15-year-old student to commit suicide, the boy's father decided that running for school board was the best way to bring about needed changes.
Nick Stuban of W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, was caught with a single capsule of JWH-018, a substance with marijuana-like effects, which was a legal drug at the time. Nonetheless, he was expelled as part of the school's zero-tolerance policy.
"The parents asked for special circumstances, which is permitted under law," explains John Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute, who has been serving as legal consultant for the Stubans. "The school ignored all that [and] took Nick Stuban out of school. He was going to be transferred to another school, where he wouldn't be able to play football, and he got very, very depressed and eventually ended his life."
Whitehead wrote a letter to the school board on behalf of the family, suggesting commonsense changes to the discipline code to hopefully spare other families from enduring similar situations. When the board ignored them, Nick's father, Steve, decided that changes would only be made if he were on the board. The legal consultant thinks that is a good idea.
"More parents with children in school, especially children who've had problems, should be on school boards," he contends. "So it shouldn't be people disconnected from the school."
Stuban says running for the board was the furthest thing from his mind when he began his efforts to have the student rules and rights handbook revised.
