Hearing brings lesser suspension for student

The girl will serve a 90-day athletic suspension.

By DENISE DICK

and ANGIE SCHMITT

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITERS

POLAND — A Poland Seminary High School junior accused of drinking at a band night last month agreed Thursday to a reduced athletic suspension after a lengthy administrative appeal hearing.

A half dozen witnesses testified at the hearing before Poland Board of Education members in the case of Brittany Gamble, 16.

School officials had accused the girl of drinking at a band night Aug. 28 in Canfield. She will serve a 90-day athletic suspension, with credit for the time she has already served, said her attorney Plato Kalfas.

Gamble has already served a five-day suspension from school. Her original punishment, imposed by the high school principal and upheld by Superintendent Dr. Robert Zorn, called for a year’s suspension from athletic activities.

Rebekah Morse of Lowellville, Brittany’s mother, filed a request for a temporary restraining order last week in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. The court postponed hearing the request until after a decision by the school board.

School officials said that Gamble’s gait was unsteady, she smelled of alcohol and that she fell down during the band night performance.

Morse, however, said the student who fell wasn’t her daughter. Among the evidence presented was a videotape of the Aug. 28 performance. Gamble said the video clearly shows another girl, across the field, taking a fall.

“She plays the mellophone, I play the flute,” Gamble said.

Morse contends that her daughter wasn’t drinking and that school officials should have administered a breath-alcohol test — but didn’t.

“She had no chance to defend herself,” said Morse. The hearing “should have happened long before this.”

Morse said she was concerned the suspension would tarnish her daughter’s academic record and the year-long suspension from sports.

Quotable

“Sports are just my life,” said Gamble, who said she has participated in three sports every year since she was a freshman. “I kind of have an athletic fuel inside me.”

Under board policy, students who participate in athletic activities sign a participation form, saying they will refrain from alcohol or tobacco use, drug abuse, commit hazing or sexual harassment, said Superintendent Dr. Robert Zorn.

The punishment for a first offense of violating that policy is the forfeit of participation in 20 percent of events for that athletic season.

For a second offense within a calendar year, a student is suspended from participation in athletic activities for a year.

Paperwork submitted in court by the school district says that this is Brittany’s second offense. The first, which Zorn wouldn’t discuss, occurred Oct. 18, according to the papers submitted.

Gamble’s attorney, Plato Kalfas, said as part of the agreement, the school board has promised to review its policy on disciplinary athletic suspensions.