Story Archive

Just Say Duh

Hailey Gibbons, 16, was late to her class at Klein Collins High in Klein, Texas, so she was sent to the office with a tardy form. The assistant principal — who had never met Hailey — thought she was acting “odd” and so had a nurse conduct a field sobriety test. The nurse concluded that Gibbons was intoxicated, which the girl vehemently denied. The school asked Gibbons’ mother, Jennifer Saxton, to come to the school. When she did, she took her daughter and went straight to a medical lab that Saxton said school administrators recommended. But when the 11-panel drug and alcohol test came back negative, the school ignored the results and sent Gibbons to an alternative school for 30 days based solely on the school nurse’s opinion. Saxton said she will be withdrawing her daughter from the school and is considering a lawsuit. “KISD uses a variety of methods to determine whether a student may be impaired at school,” the school district said in a statement. “While we will not discuss any specific instances, there are multiple reasons why certain outside sources may not be given weight in a matter such as this.” (MS/KRIV Houston) ...So the school nurse is more definitive than a medical test. Got it.