A Cobb student who was expelled last year after warning friends of a school threat is taking the fight to overturn the expulsion to the courts after the Georgia Board of Education sided with the district.
Internal documents suggest state officials hearing the student’s appeal were torn on whether he should have been expelled, before ultimately upholding the punishment. It’s a case that hinges on whether a middle schooler who saw a threat and feared for his and his friends’ safety intended to cause a disruption or not.
“We disagree with the state board’s decision,” said Michael Tafelski, one of the attorneys from the Southern Poverty Law Center representing the student. “It’s just one of the latest examples where Cobb County Schools continues to criminalize, surveil, punish students instead of providing them with the support and resources that they need.”
The situation happened back in September, two days after four people were killed in the deadliest school shooting in Georgia’s history.
The student, a middle schooler, who is only identified in official documents by the initials G.D., saw a video of someone threatening to shoot up several Cobb schools where he had friends. G.D., whose parents say he has autism, sent messages warning friends about the threat.
Officials at the school accuse G.D.’s messages of prompting “a dozen or more” students, teachers and parents to report concerns about the potential threat. The school also went on lockdown after receiving an external threat, which officials said was caused by G.D.’s messages.
G.D. was expelled for the remainder of the school year. He attended an alternative school and took online classes. He had to move in with his grandmother for part of that time because he couldn’t stay home alone all day while his parents worked.
“I did not know all of this was going to happen, and I’m very sorry,” G.D. wrote in a statement on Sept. 6.
His family appealed the local board’s decision to the state board of education. But in a rare move reserved for complicated cases, internal documents reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed that the hearing officer for G.D.’s case wrote two decisions for the state board to consider: one affirming the expulsion, and one reversing it. The documents were obtained by G.D.’s attorneys under the Georgia Open Records Act.
Both documents conclude that there was a disruption to school operations — the only difference between the two is about G.D.’s intent.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
The decision that affirms the expulsion explained that whether the student intended to cause harm with their actions does not matter, per previous state board decisions: “The Student may not have intended to cause a disruption to the education environment, but he did intend to send the screenshots, which caused the disruption.”
The decision that would have reversed the expulsion states that the local board’s policy requires a student to intentionally cause the disruption, which the board was unable to prove.
Both decisions were shared with the state board’s attorney, the board chair, the vice chair and the vice chair of appeals, who all met before the March meeting. Board Chair Stanley DeJarnett said it’s typical for that group to meet for a rough overview of the appeals that will be on the agenda, but that the full board discusses each appeal in executive session. Typically, there is only one decision for each appeal.
“I’m not gonna comment on a particular case, obviously,” DeJarnett told the AJC. “But it is rare for us to see two separate recommendations from the hearing officers. It’s rare.”
DeJarnett said each board member takes the responsibility of hearing student appeals “very, very seriously.” The board only voted publicly on the decision to affirm the expulsion in March.
“We continue to strongly believe that the decision to expel him was unsupported by any evidence and was an unlawful expulsion,” Tafelski said.
G.D. will be going to the high school he’s zoned for when school starts in August, but is still appealing the state board’s decision in Cobb County Superior Court. His attorneys expect to argue the case for overturning G.D.’s expulsion sometime in the fall.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
