by Rebecca Stussman ’12          

On November 3, 2010, Fairfax sophomore Nick Stuban was suspended from his high school for buying a capsule of a legal substance known as JWH-018, a synthetic compound with a marijuana-like effect. Stuban was a first-time offender, Boy Scout and football player. His suspension lasted for over seven weeks and ended in an involuntary school transfer, which forced Stuban into a different school away from his friends and teachers. On January 20 of this year, due in part to the stress and isolation of his strict punishment, Stuban took his own life. This tragic incident, reported at length in The Washington Post, has brought much scrutiny to disciplinary procedures and the efforts that are taken to ensure fairness, not only in Fairfax County but also at school systems all over the country, including MCPS.        

MCPS’s disciplinary process, both in its administrative designation of consequences and in its method of investigating offenses, tries to protect student rights through a willingness to receive and act upon complaints from students, staff or parents. Few formal restrictions on disciplinary power exist directly in county policy, however, allowing for leaders such as principals to exercise with relative freedom under wide guidelines. This creates a somewhat unobjective approach that, MCPS feels, is necessary to view each offense and student individually. In such a system, even zero-tolerance responses to infractions are subject to interpretation.  

 “When you’re dealing with behavior and people, there is some subjectivity that comes into it,” said Principal Bill Gregory. “But without this subjectivity, everyone would have to receive the same consequence for each behavior, and I don’t think that’s fair and I don’t think that’s right.”          

At Sherwood, Gregory has complete authority to suspend students, though the county monitors his fairness through analysis of Sherwood disciplinary statistics and an openness to respond to criticisms against him by parents, students and staff. Stu”We have to take a look at witnesses and see their veracity. Are they telling the truth? Why are they telling us this?” said security team leader Patrick Rooney.

Similar to with the disciplinary consequences determination process, student rights during investigations are protected not through specific regulations but rather a system that counts on authority members, such as security guards, to check each other and report unfair behavior that their peers may demonstrate. During disciplinary investigations, the security team mainly uses witnesses, video cameras and written statements to uncover students’ culpability or lack thereof.”I believe each of us has rights,” said Gregory. “If you are a perpetrator and did something, you have rights too … I want to be known, and I want us to be known, as people who are fair.” 

One primary investigative technique used by many counties, including Montgomery and Fairfax Counties, is a statement written by the accused student upon questioning. This statement is in part intended to provide the student with an opportunity to explain his or her perspective of the offense, though written statements can also be used as evidence against the student. At Sherwood, students are not generally reminded of the self-incriminating potential of their written statements.Sherwood tries to protect student rights by accepting complaints against disciplinary investigators and conducting thorough investigations of offenses. “I do not want to accuse someone of doing something they haven’t done, so I look for investigations to be as thorough and definitive as possible,” said Gregory. In the process of determining consequences, the school attempts to preserve rights via an appeals process, and by mandating that a principal and two hearing officers concur for a student to be expelled.

In investigating students and doling out consequences, the system is largely dependent on the proactivity of students, parents and staff to advocate student rights and on the abilities of those in power to make fair decisions and check that others do the same.