Appellants' daughter, Courtney, is a junior at the District's high school. She has participated in many extracurricular activities, including drill team, and she has also served as a class officer.

The drill team stayed in a Des Moines hotel on the night of December 3, 1999. On that evening, seven team members were present in one of the six hotel rooms that were occupied by the team and school personnel. At approximately 11:30 p.m., four more team members, including Courtney, joined the other seven girls. One girl brought four wine coolers with her, which were hidden underneath a blanket. Courtney testified that she had no prior knowledge or involvement in the purchase, transportation, or possession of the wine coolers and that she first became aware of them when the bottles were opened up in the hotel with all eleven girls present.

Courtney admitted that she had taken approximately three drinks of the alcohol. Two other girls besides Courtney admitted having taken drinks of the alcohol. These three girls were suspended under the District's good conduct policy. Seven other girls admitted to being present in the room, but not to drinking any alcohol or to any involvement in getting the alcohol to the hotel. The District had routinely conducted bag checks if there was going to be an overnight function. In this situation, the bag check had not been done. The seven girls and their parents argued to the superintendent that if the bag check had been done, they would not have been in the presence of alcohol.

Superintendent Graves testified that he decided that the students who were only in the presence of alcohol should be excepted from discipline under the good conduct policy due to the bag check omission. Dr. Graves testified that the other three students, who had made the deliberate choice to drink the alcohol, had placed themselves outside the bag check exception. Appellants' main argument on appeal is that the District should have applied the bag check exception to Courtney's situation. They argue that she would not have had the opportunity to drink the alcohol if the District had confiscated the wine coolers before the bus left for the drill team competition in Des Moines.

So long as the District acted uniformly with respect to students in the same situation, the District had the authority to reduce the penalty as it did because it felt imposition of the full penalty would be unfair under the circumstances. In re Josh Burns, 15 D.o.E. App. Dec. 350 (1998). In this case, the District acted uniformly in applying the bag check exception only with respect to the seven girls who were in the presence of the alcohol, but who did not admit to drinking the alcohol or to planning its arrival. The District acted uniformly in deciding not to allow a bag check exception with respect to students such as Courtney who did admit to drinking the wine coolers.

That the Battle Creek-Ida Grove Community School Board of Directors' decision made on January 10, 2000, to declare Courtney Lansink ineligible to participate in two athletic events and two non-athletic events, and ineligible to act as an elected representative of the student body for one calendar year, be affirmed.