Student Reports Pot Smoking During 7th Grade Class

A seventh grade student said her classmates were smoking marijuana during her science class, while the substitute teacher was in the room. Brittany Gonzalez, 12, said it happened not once, but twice this week.

?It was happening during class,? said Gonzalez. ?I was in the back row and they had a table exactly right in front of me.?

Gonzalez said the substitute teacher was in the classroom while her classmates were lighting up.

?I?m pretty sure he could smell it,? said Gonzalez. ?He just didn’t want anything to happen (or) make a big scene.?

She said she told the teacher about the incident after class.

?I felt like he didn’t take it seriously and he really didn’t believe me,? said Gonzalez. ?He was just giving me a weird look saying that he couldn’t smell anything. So I felt that he thought I was lying (and) making this all up.?

Gonzalez told her mom as soon she got home.

?I couldn’t believe it what she was telling me,? said Stormy Cordero, Brittany?s mom. ?But when it happened the second time is when I was really, really scared for my children and the children at Carmel Middle School.?

Cordero said she did speak to the assistant principal about it.

?We did a full investigation right away to find out what was going on,? said Jennifer Sprague, spokesperson for the Harrison D-2 school district. ?We did find a small trace amount of marijuana on a student, and we did the proper disciplinary procedures for that student. So it was dealt with.?

But as far as the allegations of a group smoking in class, Sprague denies them. .

?There?s absolutely no way a group of students are going to be passing around marijuana and smoking it in class without a bunch of students noticing and wanting to get that stopped in the classroom,? said Sprague. ?So that absolutely did not happen.?

Cordero believed her daughter and wanted to know what actions school officials took to remedy the situation.

?We can?t give them all the details because it involves student privacy,? said Sprague. ?But we can say that immediately once we received the complaint from the parent we looked into it and we took care of it.?

Cordero was not satisfied with the response.

?I am trying to do what I can so every parent can know what is going on,? said Cordero. ?Obviously the school is not doing their part to let the parents know of the situation this is happening in the classroom.?

Cordero said she plans to send her daughter to a different school.