The Jefferson Parish School Board voted not to overturn Ka’Mauri Harrison’s school suspension.
Ka’Mauri is the fourth-grader at a Harvey school who was seen by his teacher moving a BB gun while in a virtual class lesson. He was suspended by his school, which made national news and that prompted state legislators to pass the Ka’Mauri Harrison Act.
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The legislation brought sweeping policy change to school district’s discipline policies including requiring school boards to hold an appeal hearing for any student suspended.
At Ka’Mauri’s appeal hearing on Friday, members of the Jefferson Parish School Board heard heated testimonies but in the end refused to remove Ka’Mauri’s suspension from his school record.
However, the board did agree to reduce his suspension from six days down to three, which Ka’Mauri has already served.
As The Times Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate reports, emotions ran high at times during Ka’Mauri’s hearing. After the hearing, his father stormed out the board chamber in frustration the newspaper reports.
"It really just makes me more angry," he said.
"They are just doubling down...it hit a nerve for me,” Ka’Mauri’s father Nyron Harrison told reporters.
Immediately after Harrison’s hearing, the school board heard a similar hearing of Tomie Brown, a Grand Isle sixth-grader who was also suspended after being seen handling a BB gun during a virtual class session.
After testimony, the school board voted to uphold Brown’s three-day suspension as well.