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Student keeps good grades, despite suspension
By Hempology | July 1, 2007
Regina Leader-Post, SN
30 Jun 2007
Matthew Barton
STUDENT TO KEEP GOOD GRADES
Wawota’s Kieran King may be able to hang onto his honour role status, despite being suspended from Wawota Parkland School for violating a lockdown.
King, 15, ignored the lockdown and tried to rally students to walk out in support of free speech.
He was protesting the order of school principal Susan Wilson to stop talking about marijuana at school.
The entire debacle has attracted national attention and officials have come under withering criticism for their handling of the walkout and treatment of King.
Now, officials appear to have shifted their earlier position on the matter of King’s final grades. He will not receive zero for each final exam he didn’t write during his suspension.
Instead, the school will award him a cumulative average of his marks throughout the school year.
King is an honour roll student with marks in the 80s and 90s.
“His teachers will assess his progress during his absence in China and determine a mark reflecting his competency. He’s not going to be penalized, that’s clear,” said Don Rempel, the director of education for the South East Cornerstone School Division.
Rempel said King was always provided with a time to write his exams and argued King could have rearranged his departure date for China to write them at a later time.
King’s family has secured legal counsel since the lockout, and have been advised not to speak with the media. Jo Ann Buler, King’s mother, declined to confirm if the family was seeking legal action in response to recent events.
“At the point they said they’d give Kieran a zero for his marks I said it wasn’t a fair assessment. If they had left it at the walkout that would’ve been the end of it,” said Buler.
King will not be returning to Wawota Parkland School in the fall.
According to a letter from Wilson to King’s family, King was offered the chance to write his exams when he returned in the fall.
“Because he is not returning, Kieran will be given his cumulative average as it stood on the day of his suspension, as his final mark. The final exams will not be written, nor counted as a factor in determining his final mark,” wrote Wilson.
Rempel defended the school’s decisions.
“It was vastly misrepresented in the media that he was denied access to his exams. The school still provided an opportunity to write his exams and he didn’t take advantage of that. He could have rearranged his vacation,” said Rempel.
King’s final exams were initially scheduled to be written before he left the country.
He was suspended on June 12 for three days and left for China on June 14.
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