Even Daniel Bautista's parents agreed he should have been suspended for bringing a knife to school, although they believed their 13-year-old son when he said he had forgotten it was in his pants pocket.
But Jorge and Rose Bautista said the eighth-grader did not deserve to be removed from Sycamore Canyon School in Thousand Oaks.
Like many parents nationwide who are questioning zero-tolerance weapons laws aimed at preventing school violence, they took on their local school board, and requested to do so in a public hearing.
Their fight, aired Tuesday afternoon before dozens of parents and officials with the Conejo Valley Unified School District, offers an unusual glimpse at what normally is handled as a confidential matter.
"I felt that Daniel unintentionally took the knife to school; he didn't show it to anyone, he didn't threaten anyone," Rose Bautista told school board members. "I felt Daniel was a good kid who made a mistake."
They also have filed a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, saying Daniel's Latino heritage explains why his punishment did not match that of another Sycamore Canyon student, a white boy who was suspended last year for five days for having a small knife.
School officials deny any racial prejudice, noting that the other boy's knife did not qualify as a weapon under state law, and that most of the students expelled on similar charges were white. Bautista's knife was considered a weapon because it had a locking blade.
The school board ordered Daniel to attend another middle school until Thanksgiving break, after which he could return to Sycamore Canyon. His expulsion will be expunged from his record if he stays out of trouble.
"I think this is a very, very lenient punishment," board member Dorothy Beaubien told the packed hearing. "Truly, I think Daniel is a good kid, we all agree. But the fact is, he broke the law in a sense."
Zero-tolerance policies are increasingly coming under fire by parents and community leaders who say they leave no room for individual judgment.
The policies became prevalent after 1994, when the federal government mandated that all schools receiving federal funds expel any student bringing a firearm onto campus. Many states and school districts enacted tougher standards in the wake of school shootings, such as the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado.
