Thursday, Oct. 9, 2003 | 9:50 a.m.
A Clark County School District expulsion review panel on Wednesday upheld the punishment handed down to a Boulder City High School senior for his alleged involvement with drugs and Johnny Aquino in the hours before Aquino died of a cocaine overdose, the student's mother said.
Debbie Hagan said she's not sure if they will appeal her son Jimmy's expulsion again. The next appeal would be to a School District expulsion review board, which is a larger board that includes School Board members, Edward Goldman, regional superintendent for the southeast region, said.
"I would like to fight this all the way to the end, but at this point I just want to see my son get an education," Hagan said.
Her son, a football player and wrestler at the school, has been out of school for more than four weeks trying to do his schoolwork from home.
The younger Hagan said Monday that hours before Aquino died the two left a party at Aquino's apartment to buy beer. On the way they picked up a man who bought the beer and who Aquino later told Hagan he got cocaine from.
Hagan said he had no idea Aquino was picking up drugs during their trip to buy beer and, when he found out, Hagan left the party and went home.
In the days following Aquino's death, Hagan, two other football players and another Boulder High student were suspended from the school.
The other students accepted an offer from school officials to take classes at an opportunity school for four to nine weeks and then return to Boulder High, Hagan said.
But Hagan fought the allegations.
He said he shouldn't have been punished because he didn't do drugs and he left the party as soon as he found out drugs were there.
Hagan and his mother also said they were concerned that accepting the punishment would leave a black mark on his school transcript and hurt his chances for getting into colleges.
School officials will not discuss specific disciplinary cases.
Goldman said school transcripts only reflect a student's grades and the school those grades were received from at the end of each semester in January and June. A transcript would not show any evidence of a punishment that ran its course in time for students to return to their original school by the end of a semester, Goldman said.
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