Below is the official press release from the Newport-Mesa School District regarding the story posted yesterday about the elementary school boy suspended from school for having kombucha tea in his lunchbox which school administration deemed with no testing or due diligence to violate the district’s drug and alcohol policy.
It appears that the school must fear the legal ramifications of their over the top reaction as they are spinning the story already.
The statement insists that the child was not suspended and no disciplinary action was taken.
You call keeping a child in the school office for the entire day, interrogating him about where/when he obtained this “illegal” beverage, telling him he may have to transfer to another school, attempting to sign him up for a youth alcoholics program and then having him sign a 5 day suspension notice “no disciplinary action?”
Revoking the suspension does NOT mean the suspension and interrogation somehow never happened! And, Police Officers in uniform (per a statement from the child’s mother who had another meeting yesterday – this time with the Principal) were called into the office to assist with the child’s possibly illegal interrogation since the child was questioned about any medicines he was taking etc and there was no attorney or parent/guardian present. Whether or not the officers were already on campus is immaterial.
I do hope the parents consider legal action to be played out in a court of law. A very strong possibility exists that their rights and that of their son were horribly violated and doing nothing just ensures that this type of abuse will continue.
Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s Statement Re: Alleged Action of Suspension for Possession of Kombucha Tea Drink
For Immediate Release: Friday, October 12, 2012
Newport-Mesa Unified would like to respond to a recent article posted in The Healthy Home Economist titled, “Child Suspended from School for Kombucha in Lunchbox.”
No disciplinary action was taken and the student was not suspended. The parents of the involved student met with the school principal to discuss and resolve any issues that resulted from Wednesday’s incident.
The issue resulted from the student being in possession of a beverage called, Kombucha, a tea, which states on its label that it contains 0.05 percent alcohol. The substance came to the attention of school officials through other students who reported that a student had alcohol. Having a substance on campus containing any level of alcoholic content is a violation according to District policy.
The article also references police involvement. The Newport Beach Police Department provides two full- time School Resource Officers who work with our Newport Beach and Corona del Mar campuses. Police were not called in specifically for this incident. The SRO was already on campus and participated in a routine discovery process. All this being said, the incident itself and the perception of how it was handled is something the District is committed to correcting. School districts implement policies and procedures to ensure consistency of practice. For most circumstances, the practices work. However, this was a new situation.
Seeing the need to review some of the practices regarding policies and procedures regarding discipline, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District Board of Education has requested the Superintendent to research programs that would emphasize a more nurturing approach to the discovery process and avoid overly aggressive practices when dealing with the discipline process.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
I think the school is right to say it shouldn’t be allowed. While the amount of alcohol is minuscule for an adult, 0.05% is actually quite a bit for a child.
That being said, they definitely should have contacted the parents and let them know that there would be disciplinary actions next time, as it’s obvious that they sent this with their child.
0.05% is a percentage, not an amount. How is that “quite a bit for a child” as you state? What you wrote makes no sense whatever! Seriously, did you even take a math class?
Now that made no sense?? The percentage does represent an amount?? Having said that, .05% isn’t quite a bit for a child.
BC, it’s not clear whether you know what percentage means. It is like a fraction, with 100 being the denominator. So 0.05 percent means the same as five one-hundredths percent, which equals 5/10,000 of the total volume of the drink, or 1/2,000 of the total volume of the drink as alcohol. (I’m tired, but I think my math is correct. Someone correct me if not.)
One two-thousandth would be an infinitesimal amount of alcohol in an 8 oz. bottle of kombucha. I’d have to do more math to translate it into mL and I’m too tired now, but it is very, very small.
so you see, a percentage does not give you the actual amount referred to. It is simply a fraction **of something else**, and you need to know what the percentage refers to. If it referred to a gallon of kombucha, then yes, there might be a significant amount of alcohol in it, for a child. But not with an 8 oz bottle. Or 12 oz.
What? First off, I just said it wasn’t a lot?? I’m not suggesting that I can magically figure out what .05% of X is? But once I know X… Again, not sure where I went wrong in that post. Reading DaveR’s post again, I assume he was making the point I just made! The assumption both myself and Chris are making is that there is an X.
I’m saying that the .05% listed on Kombucha bottles doesn’t amount to much. See, I can be agreeable! ;o)
But thanks for the math lessons. ;o)
BC, what you write is often ambiguous. I took what you wrote to mean either that the percentage itself denoted a specific amount, or that you thought that amount was a lot for a kid. It is difficult to interpret what you write and that’s why I spelled out the whole percentage thing. Adding question marks at the end of a sentence that is not a question is one practice that confuses your meaning, and may reverse your meaning completely. But there are other things about your writing style that also lead to ambiguity.
Although you don’t want to proofread, it could make your posts more clear and would make your points stronger. I urge you to do so. If you followed the normal rules of English, we could have a better discussion with you.
I don’t mean this is an insult in any way, but I have been a proofreader and it is very difficult to work one’s way through your posts.
proofreading wouldn’t have caught that. That’s a facebook thang! lol! I can see how that post might have been confusing. If there are others, please let me know. I am trying for much shorter posts.
Work. Then post. Work. Then post.
My thumbs are getting tired.
Judith, I have become so used to sending texts, tweeting and posting quick comments on facebook that I guess it’s just gotten so easy. It’s the new shorthand. When you’re typing with your thumbs on a 4 inch screen, where half the screen is keyboard, you tend to cut corners. With auto-correct, word suggest and Swype, you can communicate quickly in environments you wouldn’t otherwise be able to. Most people sending texts know the dangers of auto-connect! ;o) Scrolling back thru your comment to proofread almost defeats the purpose. I am not trying to be condescending. I can now see why some of my “debates” were so strange.
LOL- most people get this one but it doesn’t actually mean I’m laughing out loud. It means the sentence before is a joke. Or you’re quite pleased with how witty you think your sentence was.
;o)- The wink is meant to relay sarcasm or to let the person know it’s a joke.
:o)- The smile is just letting the person know that, you meant your statement in a light-hearted way. Or again, they are pleased with something they said.
?- After a statement, means you are questioning something they said.
??- means you know what they said, but it doesn’t make any sense.
In the age of the tweet, Thru=through, u=you, c=see and so on. And apostrophes are just annoying and require you to switch screens sometimes.
That is brief tutorial of texting lingo. Im sure there’s generational joke just dancing in someones head right now but I hope that helps. :o)
I’ve read some of the comments here and the one question I see the most is “Why weren’t the parents called in before questioning the child” My neice was recently calledd into her principals office becuase she was being bullied and her mother called the principal and asked her what she was going to do to stop it. When my niece went in to the office her bullies were there, the school counselor and the principal who started bulling my niece telling her it was all her fault and her bullies were innocent if my niece wasn’t in the schoool (the only middle school with in 80 miles) she won’t be bulllied by those girls. My niece went home, told her mom , who went to the school and had words with the principal. She told the principal verbally and again in writing she was NOT to talk to my niece without her parents there to which the principal responded “No we don’t allow the parents in the room with the child when we call them in. It’s an invasion of the students privacy.” So it’s an invasion of the students privacy for parents to be in the room but not an invasion of their privacy to have the bullies in the room? Yeah. A court of law once came down with a ruling that kids do not have rights in the schools like adults do and our consitutional rights don’t apply to children unless the government decides to and that includes the schools.
It’s sad that we have this stuff going on in this country.
It just goes to show you how stupid the people teaching/disciplining our children are. In their own words…”Any percent of alcohol in a beverage is not allowed”. Thank you school principle for proving you have no IQ or intelligence at all. ALL SODA has trace amounts of alcohol. Root beer is .05 percent. Is root beer illegal? Ginger ale is .07% alcohol…Is that allowed? Coke has an admitted .02 percent…Ban any coke lately? People are so very stupid. Let a peach ferment in water with some sugar and you get, guess what?…Alcohol. Ban peaches and sugar? Just a massive look at the inadequacies of our educational system. “Those who cannot do…teach.”~George Bernard Shaw… Teach your own children. Home school yourselves first then teach them. Read before they ban books for formaldehyde content or something…
This is so important to write about, Sarah. Thank you for covering it.
The lesson I hope everyone here gets is this: if something like this has never happened to you or a loved one, please think NOW what you would do if it does happen. Because it can.
A few people have posted comments here indicating that they are looking for something that the boy or the family did that put them somehow at fault, or responsible for what happened. And still others are trying to excuse the school (people who work there).
First of all — this family and this boy did nothing to deserve what happened. I don’t even care IF he told his classmates he was drinking alcohol. The first thing that should have happened if the school was concerned was to call the parents. That this was not only not the first thing they did, but apparently not the second, third, fourth etc. thing — but maybe the very last thing they did — is a chilling, scary thing. And this is happening all over the place these days, people.
And secondly, sure people at the school “made mistakes,” but they are most definitely “responsible” for what happened. I’m sick of PR and legally CYA to the point where you cannot admit a mistake or apologize or make things right. This family’s rights were violated horribly. And that poor boy…. just like Susan commented above — something like this is traumatic and can affect someone for YEARS.
I had something similar happen with one of my children (school-based interrogation with police, without calling parents). It may have been an insignificant, policy-following blip in that school counselor’s career, but to me and my family, nearly 2 years after the incident, we are still reeling from the repercussions.
Absolutely, make the hugest stink possible, including legal action! And for all of you so blessed as to have never encountered such treatment, please open your eyes and realize it can happen to you. if it can happen to me and my family (we are normal, close-knit and loving) — it can happen to anyone and any family.
Our mistake (so sad to call it that) was being confident that since we were doing nothing wrong, that we could never be caught up in the nightmare of false accusations. We had thought that happens to other people — could never happen to a family like ours. We were so blissfully ignorant. So it caught us hard, by surprise. I wish we could return to that innocent time, and I bless all of you who are still feeling confident and safe in this world (safe from unwarranted investigations by authorities), but on the other hand…. I would like to warn you, so you can prepare yourselves for a worst-case scenario and know in advance how you would respond, if something like this should happen.
Sorry to be so negative, but that is what this horrible experience did to our previously happy, carefree family. I now feel like I have to warn everyone. 🙁
I work as a therapist in schools, and I love kombucha.
And I can guarantee the only reason children knew that there was alcohol in kombucha is because this boy told them. If a student is telling his schoolmates that he’s drinking alcohol at school in front of them, I want my students to tell an adult. They did the right thing. And there is alcohol in kombucha, a staff member looked at the bottle and it is plainly labeled as such. No alcohol. Is is silly? Yes.
The parents who sent their child to school with kombucha didn’t do anything wrong. The students who told an adult that alcohol was being consumed at school didn’t do anything wrong. And the staff at the school who saw that alcohol was being consumed didn’t do anything wrong by following protocol.
The boy who thought it was necessary to show his classmates that he was drinking alcohol is the party in the wrong.
You were right up until you didn’t say the school was wrong for interrogating the child without his parent. I understand though you work for the brain drain system and probably can’t see past your bias. The school was okay until it didn’t bring the mom in to be with the child during questioning. There is a reason for this as a person, especially a child, will admit to almost anything if they are threatened the right way. Telling this kid he’s going to drug and alcohol programs so you can get your “conviction” is not right.
But considering your part of the school system your probably okay with this.
I’m passionate about children, parents, and family. And health. I am a parent and proponent for the right for parents and families to nourish their families as they see fit.
And although I work primarily outside of schools, there are some parents who have opted that their children are seen during school hours and we have our sessions at their school(s).
There are very black and white rules in our education system, set up for the safety of children. A faculty or staff member who knows nothing about kombucha and simply sees that alcohol is labeled is obligated to act upon that. There is no grey there.
We are human beings who individually and collectively make mistakes – both institutions with imperfect policies and children with a need for attention.
It is never okay to question a child without a parent/guardian present. This is the point i’m making. Your other points are valid and I understand the need for rules to be in place. But from your tip toeing around my point it appears that you may have been involved in a scenario like this or you seriously don’t value civil rights in this country. Everyone deserves councelling when being questioned. Who is to say this child didn’t say something false to just get out of being in trouble and with that false information child services and police weren’t sent to the home. Even if they found nothing there would be records against this mother for no reason. Witch hunts are still very alive in America they just aren’t looking for spell casters.
If they see a child brought a drink containing alcohol to school, I am guessing they don’t want the parents there in order to get straight answers from him as to how often the child is allowed access to alcohol. It is the schools job to protect the child, they may have considered calling CPS if the questioning revealed regular alcohol use.
Once they learned more about the drink, dropping it is right despite the clear violation of school rules.
I see this a different way and see the parents as the ones who knowingly sent their child to school with a drink in violation of a very serious school policy.
You sure make a lot of assumptions about who said what. How you can ‘guarantee’ anything is presumptuous to say the least. Another student could easily have seen the label and decided to ‘go tell’ without the ‘guilty’ kid having to say or do anything. If you actually work in a school have you ever seen a kid grab something from another kid? No?
Your statement that the kid “thought it was necessary to show his classmates that he was drinking alcohol” is pure speculation no matter how cock-sure you may appear.
Now perhaps you could quote that school’s ‘protocol’ (that you seem to know so well) wherein it’s policy is to hold a kid all day for interrogation with police without calling a parent. Hmmm?
If I were the parent I would file a lawsuit against the school district for illegally interrogating my child without me being present, falsely accusing my son of bringing alcohol onto the campus, defamation of my son’s character and last but not least, causing me and my son great emotional distress. They would rue the day they ever crossed paths with me!
The parents should definitely pursue illegal harassment of their child … that should never be tolerated ! I read that even fruit juice that sits in a child’s lunch bag for a few hours has an alcohol content so their “no alcohol” policy is laughable.
Such behavior in over-reacting adults should definitely be civilly punished because it is way too common and can be very damaging to children. I’d rather see individuals sued instead of schools, as that just takes funding away from other kids. Since crazy adults in charge of children think it appropriate to “threaten” kids with inappropriate attendance of programs regarding childhood alcoholism, perhaps the adults who molest the minds of children in these ways should have to attend like a five-day retraining program, which they have to pay for themselves, on how not to be threatening and monstrous toward children. And it should be on their permanent record whether or not the completed a program required of adults who have been inappropriate in any way with children.