Fairfax County’s school board voted to make forced school transfers more of a last resort than a knee-jerk reaction in discipline cases, following months of debate after a student’s suicide.
Nick Stuban, 15, committed suicide after he was suspended from W.T. Woodson High School, kept out of school for months, then transferred away from Woodson. Stuban had confessed to purchasing a synthetic marijuana capsule.
The school board unanimously adopted a policy Thursday night that calls on Fairfax officials to consider other alternatives — such as community service or Saturday school — before transferring a student, which critics said removes an already vulnerable person from his or her support system.
Hundreds of students have been transferred to other Fairfax schools in discipline cases in the last few years.
