Appellant seeks reversal of decisions of the Board of Directors of the District made on February 13, February 27, and March 13, 2002, to expel Amanda Jones through the end of the 2001-2002 school year.

Principal Minnehan testified that on the morning of February 5, 2002, he received an anonymous phone call that Amanda's school bag contained a knife. Principal Minnehan asked Superintendent Paulsen to accompany him to look in Amanda's locker, but they did not find the duffel bag. Amanda happened to be in fifth-period P.E. class, but they didn't find her bag in the gymnasium. They found her duffel bag in the girls' locker room and brought it to the office. Amanda was brought to the office as well. At that point, Mr. Minnehan called Mrs. Rice to see if she wanted to be present while the bag was searched. Mrs. Rice consented to the search, but could not come to the school building right away. Therefore, she remained on the speakerphone as Mr. Paulsen and Mr. Minnehan searched Amanda's duffel bag. At the appeal hearing, Mrs. Rice stated that she is appealing Amanda's expulsion on two grounds: 1) that the expulsion until the end of the 2001-2002 school year is too harsh of a penalty for Amanda's possession of the knife in her duffel bag on school premises; and 2) that the expulsion was racially discriminatory because Amanda is the only biracial (White/Hispanic) student in the middle school. Mrs. Rice testified that she feels that because another student anonymously reported the knife, the students were targeting Amanda due to her race. She also feels, because the male student whom Amanda said she saw with a similar knife in study hall was a white student, that the administrators and board treated Amanda differently due to her race.

They found the butterfly knife in one of the outside pockets of the duffel bag. Amanda told Mr. Paulsen and Mr. Minnehan that a friend had given her the knife and that she was afraid that her cousins would find the knife at home, so she had left it in her duffel bag. Amanda must bear the responsibility for possessing the knife on school grounds. Whether she intended to possess the knife or whether she knew the knife was in her duffel bag on February 5, 2002, are not relevant to her violation of the Board's policy against possession of a weapon or dangerous object on school grounds. The District's policy prohibits the mere possession of a weapon or dangerous object, regardless of the student's intent. The evidence is undisputed that Amanda brought the butterfly knife in her duffel bag onto school property and that she possessed it in her duffel bag in the girls' locker room on February 5, 2002. For these reasons, we conclude that the Board acted reasonably and in the best interest of education when it expelled Amanda pursuant to its relevant Board policies and student handbook provisions. The Board's action was not out of proportion to Amanda's conduct when it expelled her for four months for violating its weapons policy and threatening the general safety of the school environment.

As long as the Board acted consistently with respect to students in the same situation, it had the authority to expel Amanda for the rest of the school year. The evidence in the record on the racial discrimination allegation was insufficient for the State Board to reverse the local board's expulsion of Amanda Jones on that basis. In fact, the record showed that neither the administrators nor the Board knew that Amanda is Hispanic when they investigated the incident and expelled Amanda. Even if they had known that Amanda is Hispanic, there is insufficient evidence in the record to show that she was treated differently from white students in similar situations. The record showed that several white students had been expelled by the District for possession of weapons or dangerous objects. Therefore, the State Board had no basis upon which to reverse Amanda's expulsion on the allegations that it was racially discriminatory.

That the decisions of the Paton-Churdan Community School District's Board of Directors made on February 13, February 27, and March 13, 2002, expelling Amanda Jones for the remainder of the 2001-2002 school year, were affirmed.