Families sue over expulsions in Dist. 203

Two families are taking Naperville Unit District 203 to court over the recent expulsion of their sons for shooting pellet guns on the school bus.

The families claim because of language and cultural barriers the boys, who moved to the U.S. from Korea in 2005, didn't fully understand the district's rules.

On May 21, the two boys, then eighth-graders at Jefferson Junior High, fired pellets at each other from lookalike weapons.

No one was injured in the incident. Naperville police arrested the boys but did not file charges against them.

The two were suspended for 10 days and given a disciplinary hearing in June.

District policies state students possessing weapons, whether real or a lookalike, will be expelled for at least a year. The school board is empowered to modify that punishment on a case-by-case basis.

Several weeks later at a July 17 school board meeting, at least a dozen family members and friends spoke on behalf of the boys, who were honor roll students in the district's English Language Learners program.

They said the boys are good children and did not understand the gravity of their actions due to cultural differences.

According to the lawsuit, both boys were given a copy of the rules, but "the copy provided was in English only and … no attempt was made to translate the rules into Korean."

However, the school board voted unanimously to expel the boys for the first semester of the 2007-08 school year in which they would have been freshmen at Naperville North High School.

"The cultural differences do not in any way justify or explain away the actions of the students," said Anthony Ficarelli, attorney for the district. "They clearly violated school code and school code policies as far as prohibition of lookalike weapons on school busses and school property. More of a concern is they shot the lookalike guns on a school bus."

Attorneys for the two boys could not be reached for comment.

The boys are not able to enroll in another district during their expulsion but also can't afford private schooling, according to the lawsuit.

A DuPage County judge has denied the families' petition to enroll the boys in public school while the case continues.

The school district has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit and will return to court Sept. 18.