Wednesday, November 28, 2001

Worried mother pulls teen from high school
Associated Press

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A high school student who was suspended last month for her anti-war, pro-anarchy stances has been pulled out of school by her mother because of safety concerns.

Amy Sierra said her daughter, Katie, 15, has been attacked, threatened and insulted by students at Sissonville High School. The mother said it was her choice to withdraw Katie and enroll her in a program in which she will complete assignments on a computer from home.

“She was getting assaulted over and over again, and I got fed up,” Amy Sierra said Monday. “I’m just so worried somebody’s going to hurt her bad.”

Katie, a ninth grader, was suspended for three days in October for defying school orders not to form an anarchy club or wear T-shirts that include slogans opposing the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan.

The school claimed the girl’s actions disrupted student learning and a Kanawha County Circuit judge upheld the suspension.

The West Virginia Supreme Court on Tuesday voted 3-2 not to consider Katie Sierra’s petition to prevent the lower court from “continuing to deny her freedom of speech.”

The handwritten message on the T-shirt that got her in trouble read: “When I saw the dead and dying Afghani children on TV, I felt a newly recovered sense of national security. God Bless America."

Students spit on her mother’s car at the high school. Her friends’ parents wouldn’t give her rides home from school. A boy wore a T-shirt signed by many Sissonville students that read: “Go back where you came from.”

Katie Sierra, who was born in Panama, has attended 15 schools. She has lived in Texas, New Mexico, Ohio, Florida and Kentucky.