“So they all tried a piece.” But two of Lien’s classmates left gym class, and landed in the nurse’s office with red faces, stomach pains, and burning tongues. And the next thing he knew, Lien was called to the carpet. “I was shocked, because I didn’t realise that giving someone a pepper could get me into as much trouble as I was in,” Lien said. Lien said he was told he was to serve after-school detention for two days, or else in-school suspension for a day. Nick Lien’s mother, Sharon Lien, also received a call. “I ran to the school to wonder why. I didn’t know what it was,” she said.
“I asked if it was pepper spray, peppers on sandwiches, and she said it was my son brought a pepper to school – which I happen to have. We eat hot peppers, so it’s, like, no big deal. I eat hot food. My family eats hot food,” she said. “It’s just in our blood.” And the Liens were shocked and mystified when they said the school likened the peppers to psychedelic drugs. “I was told that it’s equivalent to giving someone LSD,” Nick Lien said. The Liens do not believe passing out peppers warrants suspension or detention. “Students’ rights cannot be violated by dictating to them what they can and can’t bring in for lunch, so it’s an outage,” said attorney Ken Mollins.
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School is out in three weeks, and Nick Lien said being suspended would be detrimental. “All the work that we have now is all getting bunched together, and if I lose two days of school, then it’s really going to affect my grades,” he said. But the superintendent of the Middle Country School District said she does not tolerate any action that compromises the health of their students, and said she has determined that the hot peppers do pose such a threat. She said she stands by the detention. There are no New York state regulations yet on ghost peppers in schools.
5 comments:
This is absurd -- he didn't force the peppers on anyone and there's no law against bringing a food to school. As far as stating they were equivalent to LSD -- well, not only is that just plain stupid, but also increased the likelihood of MORE kids at their school trying them!
Jolokai peppers are so hot they are used to deter elephants from raiding farms in India. When you purchase these chilies online there are disclaimers to use gloves, keep away from children, use at own risk. One website advised the peeper oil could damage skin on contact. Dumb kid should have known better.
Additionally, at some schools you can't bring in peanut butter sandwiches or any peanut product, because of the fantastically severe allergic reactions it can present to some kids. Even a kid who ate a PBJ and didn't wash their hands fully and then touched a peanut-sensitive kid on the skin could create an emergency and a hospital stay.
Yeah, I'll go with the school on this one. Bringing in these chilis was not a good idea.
Lurker111
The school is right. As a school administrator, I have suspended students for similar actions: passing out hot peppers to peers, which then landed them in the nurse's office. The issue here is the disruption of school activities. In this case, several students had to leave classes and miss instruction. Moreover, teachers and staff had to stop their normal activities to respond to an incident that could have been avoided. If this boy wanted to share hot peppers with his friends, he could have done it during the other 16 or so hours of the day he is not involved in school, and there would have been no disruption to his or his friend's schooling or to the school staff. His claim that he has the right to bring whatever he wants to eat is fine, but he does not have the right to interfere with others' educational opportunities by sharing foods that may be harmful. While his parent may feel that eating hot peppers is part of their family culture, that does not mean her son has any right to create problems for others in school. I do not know about New York law, but in California, it is against state ed. code to share food (transmission of disease, risk of allergic reaction, etc.) I would have suspended this young man for his thoughtless and unwise actions that impacted several others. The detentions seem lenient.
A lot of kids just follow what other kids do, they can't think for themselves. He was an idiot for bringing that crap to school, and the other kids are just as stupid for trying them in the first place. Rules are rules, they know they are going against what the school wants, and then complain when it all backfires. If he was so worried about his grades, then maybe he shouldn't have done it. I stand by the school.
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