We, the students and community members of this school district, believe in maintaining a safe, respectful, and organized campus. However, we also believe that school discipline must be fair, balanced, and accurate to a student’s actions. Recently, a student was heavily penalized with a permanent mark on their disciplinary record for a completely harmless, non-violent cartoon joke.

During school breaks outside of class, the student shared printed pictures of the fictional cartoon character Morty Smith  with Gucci Clothes from Rick and Morty with close friends and placed a few on campus walls. The papers featured a deactivated phone number, acting as a harmless gimmick, a "Missing" title at the top, with a "$25 Reward" text below the character, created a scene showing an absurdly funny, obvious joke flyer. The flyers contained absolutely no profanity, no vulgarity, no threats, and no references to drugs or violence. No real people or school staff were targeted, mocked, or named.

While the school administration has the authority to control where flyers are placed on the campus, skipping a simple verbal warning or a request to take the papers down, and going straight to a permanent infraction on a student's record, is an extreme and unjust overreaction. The administration has claimed this cartoon joke caused "emotional harm", yet has provided no evidence of actual malice or damage to the community.

Under California Education Code and district guidelines, schools are encouraged to use progressive discipline and positive behavior interventions for first-time, non-violent minor infractions. Issuing a permanent disciplinary mark over a cartoon character poster violates the spirit of fairness and can severely impact the student’s academic future, college availability, and educational status.
We petition the School District and the School Board to direct the school administration to:

Remove this incident from the student's permanent disciplinary record. Commit to using fair, proportional, and progressive discipline rather than rushing to permanently penalize students over harmless creative expressions.

Please sign this petition to stand up for fairness, accurate discipline, and student rights in our district.
(Note to our supporters: Please keep all comments completely respectful and focused strictly on district policy. Do not post names of individual staff or students.)