A Fairfax County teen has been suspended for two weeks -- and might also get kicked out of school -- for popping a birth-control pill at school.
The honor student and lettered athlete at Oakton high school was caught taking the pill during lunch and soon found herself in the assistant principal's office, The Washington Post reported. During the meeting with her mother and the assistant principal, the school handed down the maximum sentence: a two-week suspension and recommendation for expulsion.
That's the rule in Virginia regarding prescription medications and illegal drugs on campus. And make no mistake, anti-teen pregnancy campaign or not, they take that rule seriously.
It's all in the Student Responsibilities and Rights handbook: If she had been caught high on LSD, heroin or another illegal drug, she would have been suspended for five days. Taking her prescribed birth-control pill on campus, on the other hand, gets the same punishment as bringing a gun to school.
Some might say the problem started when, in a rather progressive move (in our opinion), the teen, her mother, her boyfriend and a doctor decided over the summer that she should start taking the pill. Since the pill is supposed to be taken at the same time every day, the student chose to faithfully follow her on-the-dot pill-popping routine at school too.
If she had kept her pills in the nurse's office and gone there to take them, she would've been fine. But the student told the Post that she didn't see the logic in making a special trip to see the nurse, a relative stranger, each day during her 25-minute lunch break.
Her plan was to be discreet.
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Now, after school officials met last week to talk about the case, she is waiting to hear if she'll be expelled.
