Mixed Messages....

Was watching GMA this morning and they showed a report that just boggled my mind. A girl on the east coast had received a call from a friend who had attended a party where there was underage drinking the friend knew that if she drove in her condition, there was a good chance she would never make it home either because she would have wrapped herself around something or killed someone, so she called this girl. The girl who had not attended as she had been working at her job that day went to be a good Samaritan and drive her friend. Shortly after getting to the location where the party was being held the police showed up. Now understand the police never arrested her, they didn't take her into custody and she was in fact able to take her friend home, but her school who has a 'zero tolerance' policy about parties with underage drinking suspended the "good Samaritan" from school for 5 days and removed her from the volleyball team as captain. Now understand she had not been drinking and was never even taken into custody for it, but the school claimed in their appointment that she had. Her family is fighting to get her back into school and have the incident expunged from her record, since it could harm her chances of getting into college. Also this student is an honor roll student and does not normally go out to parties of this nature. This has also enraged the parents of the girl that she was there to pick up. The family has been told basically by the courts that there isn't anything they can do to overtime the schools ruling, which I think is utterly ridiculous since they can at any other time over turn school rulings and have in the past. I'm a little upset with the school since the message that they are sending to students is that being a good samaritan will get you into trouble. Would they rather have these students drive themselves then ask for help. Also didn't it ever occur to the school that maybe the drunk student couldn't call family since they may have been out of town at the time and that the good samaritan was the last choice before driving in her condition. It really is a massive mixed signals message, saying that if you get a call don't go help since it will only get you into trouble. I understand the concept behind the zero tolerance policy and applaud it but that doesn't mean that they should punish the people trying to do the right thing and save lives. We as parents try and teach our children to help their fellow man and then schools, agencies, and companies come along and punish them when they do what we would want them to do in the situation, it really hurts our efforts as parent and makes for even more trouble because it in stills in that child that if they get into trouble no one is going to be there for fear of the same thing. If the school really wanted to punish someone punish the kid who held the party, punish the girl who attended and needed the ride, but for pity sake don't punish the girl trying to do the right thing. Just more thoughts from the mom cop.