Jordan Evans a former Northmont student from Clayton, Ohio, said he was wrongly accused of smelling like Marijuana in his first period class las Wednesday.
“I feel like my principal and teacher could’ve handled it way better because they could’ve asked any other students. They could’ve smelled others, but they picked me,” said Evans.
This suspension notice mentions several members of the staff smelling him. He then said he was searched.
“The principal made me take everything out of my pockets and made me take off my shoes as well as pull up my sweatpants and she didn’t find anything at all. I didn’t have anything at all,” said Evans.
Katina Cottrell, his mother, a registered nurse was called to the school where she tried to prove her son’s innocence.
“I took a drug test up to the school and I drug tested my son in front of the school and the principal. They saw the results and they came back negative.”
Afterwards, she took her son to urgent care to have an additional test done the same day, with the same negative result.
According to Northmont’s Code of Conduct “Marijuana on breath or person” is a violation that carries a 10-day suspension and a recommended expulsion.
Cottrell said she’s worried her son is being racially discriminated against. Her concern comes as the district has taken a closer look at relationships between white teachers and black students.
In 2018, the district hired a diversity coach to teach staff about cultural awareness with a focus on black male students.
“The long term goals is to improve what we’re doing with students of color as far as relational things, making sure we aren’t doing things that are subjective and we’re following all protocol,” said Equity Fellows Director, Michael Carter.
Dayton247Now took the concerns to Northmont Superintendent, Tony Thomas and he declined to comment. We also reached out to Northmont Principal, Theresa Dillon.
The district sent back this statement in response.
Northmont High School has adopted a Student Code of Conduct which sets expectations for student behavior and which specifies consequences when misconduct occurs. We provide all students considered for suspension or expulsion an opportunity to speak against possible discipline and to otherwise tell their side of the story. State and federal student privacy laws prevent us from publicly discussing a particular student’s discipline. Therefore we cannot respond.
But Evans said it might be too late. “I’ve only been gone for five days, but being suspended dropped my grades down tremendously.
