A southern Minnesota school board was wrong to expel a high school student who accidentally brought a pocket knife to school and left it in her purse in her locker, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
In upholding a Court of Appeals reversal of the board's decision, the Supreme Court said the district failed to show that Alyssa Drescher, then an honor student at United South Central High School in Wells, Minn., willfully violated school policy or willfully endangered herself or others.
The board expelled her for six weeks in 2014 after a 3-inch knife she used for farm chores was found in her purse inside her locker.
Drescher told the school's principal that she used the pocket knife to cut twine on hay bales at her boyfriend's farm and "totally forgot" it still was in her purse.
The district argued that having a weapon on school grounds threatened student safety and that the knife could have gotten in the "wrong hands."
The Supreme Court, however, did not see any danger in Drescher's case.
"The record is simply devoid of evidence that suggests endangerment results from the mere presence of a forgotten 3-inch pocketknife," the court's ruling stated.
