On Board Online • April 29, 2019

By Jeffrey Mongelli
Senior Staff Counsel

The commissioner of education recently rejected various challenges to a long-term suspension that was the result of a student's social media posting that was uploaded off school grounds and during non-school hours.

In Appeal of a Student with a Disability (Decision 17,610, 2019), a high school student and several friends participated in an off-campus paintball game to celebrate the student's birthday. On the day of the party, Sept. 2, 2018, the student took a photo of another district student in front of a rack of mounted paintball guns and added the caption: "Don't come to school on Tuesday." The photograph with caption was uploaded by the student using Snapchat, a social media application.