Seventeen year old Chaz Seale’s crime? Running late.
Seale was packing his lunch for school on Monday in a hurry when he grabbed a soda. The only thing was, it wasn’t soda. It was a beer.
Seale realized his mistake when he opened his lunch. He promptly handed the can of Coors Lite to a teacher at Livingston High School, thinking he was doing the right thing. Not so. Because he violated the school’s “zero tolerance” policy on alcohol, Chaz was suspended for three days and will be forced to attend an “alternative school” for two months.
A Facebook campaign supporting Seale has already received over 1900 likes.
According to Seale, when he initially told a teacher he mistakenly brought a beer to school, she told him to simply throw it in the trash — but later changed her mind after other students in the class began making a commotion about the drink. She took the beer out of the trash and put it on her desk, when students began mocking her and joking that they were going to report her to administration.
So the teacher called the principal’s office, and the principal referred Seale to campus police. Police swiftly issued him a citation for being a minor in possession of alcohol.
But the officer revoked the citation after learning of the circumstances of the incident, tearing up the slip in front of Seale.
Undeterred, the school district suspended Seale for three days. The police officer reportedly got into trouble with his superiors for refusing to pursue the first citation.
Seale’s mother, Christi, is furious.
“I think it’s not black and white,” she told Fox 4. “There has to be a gray area. You can’t punish a kid for doing the right thing. It’s the same punishment you would give kids that you catch doing the wrong thing.”
But the high school is refusing to back down, and the school district supports the teacher and the principal. The Seale family has been told that if they want to appeal the decision, they can submit an online form.
The Livingston Independent School District would not speak on camera to the local ABC affiliate, but did issue a statement.
“The principal of Livingston High School followed appropriate LISD administrative procedures and protocol,” the statement read. “LISD encourages any parent who is in disagreement with an administrative decision to seek relief through the appellate process as provided through Livingston ISD policies. Livingston ISD policies may be accessed through the Livingston ISD Homepage.”