COLUMBUS – When does a staredown go too far?
A state appeals court has ruled that a Cincinnati area private school had the right to suspend a 12-year-old boy for one day when the principal determined that he intimidated a girl during a staring showdown.
In making the ruling, the First District County of Appeals ruled that a school[‘s students handbook does not constitute a contract.
According to court records, the boy known in documents as “D.T.” and another boy “stared at a girl while walking toward her, eventually backing her into a corner” during a snack break in a seventh-grade classroom at St. Gabriel Consolidated School of Glendale.
The girl told her parents that night she felt uncomfortable and fearful and the parents sent a letter to the school the next day.
The principal investigated and concluded that the boys’ behavior had been intimidating and that a one-day suspension was appropriate.
“D.T.” served his suspension the next day and the principal informed his parents, who agreed to a “due process hearing” where a Hamilton County Common Pleas Court judge ruled that the suspension was not a breach of contract, as the boy’s parents claimed.
The trial court judge refused to declare the handbook a contract and found the discipline did not violate the terms of the handbook, and the parents appealed to the First District.
The judge wrote that the handbook is similar to employee handbooks that other Ohio appeals courts have found them to be “a unilateral statement of rules and policies which creates no rights or obligations” and the appeals court agreed.