By Bonnie Eslinger
Daily News Staff Writer
The parents of a sophomore at Sequoia High School in Redwood City have sued the district for kicking the student out of an honors English class last month for copying a classmate's homework.
The lawsuit, filed April 18 in San Mateo County Superior Court, claims the teenager's due process rights were violated. It names as defendants the Sequoia Union High School District, District Superintendent James Lianides and Sequoia High School Principal Bonnie Hansen.
The sophomore had signed an "Academic Honesty Pledge" at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year that declares cheating is grounds for immediate removal from the advanced-level program; his mother also had signed it. According to the lawsuit, however, another school document states that a student will be removed from the program only after a second plagiarism offense.
The boy's father, Jack Berghouse, does not dispute that his son copied his English homework from another student, who also was kicked out of the honors class for the offense. But Berghouse said he believes the punishment is disproportionate to the offense and will jeopardize his son's academic future.
"He knows it's wrong," Berghouse said Tuesday. "You cannot imagine the mental and emotional penalty that has been inflicted upon him. He is a student who has a chance to do just about anything, and he thinks that this could take that away from him. We've offered several penalties, anything other than being kicked out of the English program."
The parents suggested, for example, that their son could work as an after-school teacher's assistant for the rest of the school year, Berghouse said.
According to the lawsuit, the school's policies regarding punishment for cheating are vague and contradictory, so should not be enforced.
In a March 19 letter from Lianides to Berghouse, the superintendent acknowledges that a second document, attached to the honesty pledge, refers to an "old two-strikes policy" and should have been updated. But the signed pledge "clearly states that any incident of cheating or plagiarism will result in the student removal from the class with no exceptions," he wrote.
The sophomore was enrolled in a program for freshmen and sophomores called the International College Advancement Program, or ICAP, designed by the high school to prepare students for a demanding academic curriculum offered to juniors and seniors called the International Baccalaureate program.
Noting he could not specifically comment on the student or the lawsuit, Lianides said in an email Wednesday that the "rigorous academic" program comes with high expectations.
"Students that successfully complete the full program as juniors and seniors are awarded a special diploma at graduation and typically gain admission to very competitive universities," Lianides wrote.
"If cheating or plagiarism is not strongly discouraged, then it will reward students who do not follow the rules, devalue the diploma, and take away from the students that put in the long hours and hard work necessary to earn the special recognition that comes with an International Baccalaureate diploma."
After the copying incident, the student and his mother were told during a March 5 meeting at the school that he would be removed from the sophomore ICAP English class for cheating and get an "F," according to the suit. In addition, they were told the student would not be allowed into the International Baccalaureate English classes when he became an upperclassman, that the offense would be noted in the program's record, and that he would be denied the special diploma.
The next day, Sequoia Principal Hansen informed the family that the punishment had been reduced due to a "loophole," according to the lawsuit, and that the student would be allowed to participate in the International Baccalaureate program after all, with no mention of the cheating on his record. But he would still be left out of the advanced studies sophomore English class.
The family rejected the offer.
Several school officials, including Lianides, told the family they didn't have the right to appeal and denied their request for a school board review of the dispute, according to the lawsuit.
The family is still trying to get their son back into the class, although the school year ends June 8. A preliminary injunction motion to temporarily halt the punishment will be heard on May 17, Berghouse said.
"I'm doing this for the other kids at Sequoia," he said.
Topic: Parents sue school for kicking son out of honors class for cheating (Read 2095 times)