COLUMBUS, Ohio - May 11, 2011 - Two Canal Winchester Middle School students were booted off the school bus last week for, well, passing gas.
James Nichols and Kristine Kuzora are upset that their son's flatulence was designated as an obscene gesture by school officials.
Their 13-year-old son and another boy were on the school bus Thursday when they both experienced an emission. Children being children, the flatulence apparently caused a ruckus on the bus amid a flurry of laughs, jeers and lowering of windows, Nichols said.
Canal Winchester Middle School officials cited the boys for making an obscene gesture in violation of the student code of conduct in revoking their rides to school Friday.
The bus driver had warned the boys a few weeks ago after another joint gas attack, so they apparently were designated repeat offenders and handed one-day bus suspensions, said Nichols.
Nichols has a sense of humor about the incident but is amazed that his seventh-grader, Anthony, would be kicked off the bus for doing what comes naturally - and accidentally.
"It's very laughable, that's what it is," he said.
He said the bus driver reported the boys to the vice principal, Daniel Senu-Oke, with whom he discussed the punishment.
"He suggested my son should hold his gas on this hourlong bus ride, if in fact he has gas," said Nichols, whose family lives in Bloom Township in Fairfield County, south of Canal Winchester.
"When it happens, it just happens," he said. "It's not intentional."
Calls to the middle school and superintendent's office seeking comment were not returned.
