Another Case of Zero Tolerance Stupidity. La Salle Peru Township Highschool suspends girl for two days and bans her from Prom and Graduation for Having an Inhaler in her Purse

Well, one of our local High Schools proves once again how stupid zero tolerance policies are. This young lady was suspended for two days, not allowed to attend her Senior Prom or stand on stage at her graduation for the horrible crime of having a life saving device n her purse.  An inhaler was found in her purse while school employees searched for a cell phone that had been stolen from a woman's restroom.   I'll let the Grandmother of the teen involved give more details.  She wrote this letter to the editor appeared in the La Salle Newws Tribune  the other day.  

"To the dean of students and the board of education at La Salle-Peru High School:

My granddaughter, Haleigh Golgin, is a senior at this school. She was recently suspended for two days not allowed to attend any school function for 30 days — which included prom — and graduating on stage with her classmates.

The reason: a cellphone was stolen from a bathroom at the school, so every girl had her purse searched that used this bathroom. My granddaughter had an inhaler and few Motrin in her purse; she violated their policy of not giving the nurse these items. She had an order from her doctor that she could carry the inhaler but strange enough the nurse could not find it, and she simply forgot to take the six Motrin out of her purse.

So she violated the policy by having an unknown substance in her purse. They were clearly labeled.

When my granddaughter was 13 she died twice. She was a healthy teenager one day and the next day she was fighting for her life. She was put on life support, while we all watched her body shutting down — she was on a ventilator for more then three months and in a coma most of the time. She fought all odds to survive, I watched her every day, sat by her side prayed, made deals with the Lord for a miracle. She had surgeries that left scars that no child should have. She loved softball and was a great pitcher. We loved watching her play; now she cannot play due to her damaged lungs, hence the use of the inhaler.

Do you know what it’s like to not be able to breathe and why God invented inhalers? I watched her go from a shell of a girl who had to learn to walk, talk and use her hands again and what struggles she overcame. She is a miracle. She missed most of her eighth grade year at Parkside in Peru but was allowed to graduate on stage with her classmates, she made it across the stage with her mother’s help and had a standing ovation.

So you see policies CAN be changed. She fought to continue her schooling, had home teaching, summer school. She learned to eat again, not through her stomach from a tube but actually with a fork. She had perfect attendance at school did not even skip on senior skip day.

Policy or not, what you did was unforgivable — you would not even return my son’s phone calls. Prom and graduation were important to her.

Kathy Slover, 
Spring Valley