Is it really sad that a birth-control pill landed a high school girl a 2-week suspension?”
The girl would have received the same two-week punishment if she had brought a gun to school. The Fairfax County, Va., teenager was hauled to the principal’s office after someone saw her taking a prescribed birth control pill during lunchtime. The girl’s mom knew she was taking birth control pills, but the school didn’t. So school officials consider the pills contraband. Oakton High School, like many others across the country, has a zero-tolerance policy on drugs — no drugs of any kind unless previously approved by the school nurse. The teen and her mother, whose names were not published by the Washington Post, say the policy is too harsh. “I realize my daughter broke a rule,” the mom told the Post. But “the punishment does not fit the crime.” School officials say they’re concerned about liability and safety. How can they enforce the rules if some students were allowed to take certain pills, but not others? The honors student now faces a hearing to determine whether she’ll be expelled.
Yes, you read that correctly. You would think that Virginia high schools wouldn’t want teenage pregnancies among their students, but I really don’t see how this is going to help matters. When a Fairfax County mother got an urgent call from school last month reporting that her teenage daughter was caught popping a pill at lunchtime, she did not panic. “It was probably her birth-control pill,” she thought. She was right. Her heart dropped that afternoon in the assistant principal’s office at Oakton High School when she and her daughter heard the mandatory punishment: A two-week suspension and recommendation for expulsion. “I realize my daughter broke a rule,” the mother said. But in an appeal to the school system, she reasoned, “the punishment does not fit the crime.”Crazy, right? But here’s the real kicker: During two weeks of watching television game shows and trying to keep up with homework online, the Fairfax teen, an honor student and lettered athlete, had time to study the handbook
