A Minnesota high school student who wears rosary beads to school in
support of his cancer-stricken grandmother was ordered to pocket them by
school district officials, who said the beads could be a symbol of gang
membership.
Jake Balthazor, 15, of Coon Rapids, a northern suburb of Minneapolis,
was told Wednesday by Coon Rapids High School officials that he could
no longer wear the black and silver rosary honoring his grandmother, who
was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, his father told FoxNews.com.
“He was told not to wear it again,” Chad Balthazor said Thursday. “He
was upset when he came home from school. A teacher sent him down to the
office, but the reason he was wearing it was for his grandmother.”
The school district’s policy forbids any “apparel, jewelry,
accessories or matter of grooming which by virtue of its color
arrangement, trademark or any other attribute denotes membership in an
organized gang,” Mary Olson, director of communication for the
Anoka-Hennepin School District, told FoxNews.com.
“He was told [Wednesday] by staff not to wear it to school and they were
not told he was wearing it because of his grandmother,” Olson said. “He
was told not to wear it because it’s a gang symbol. He may not think of
it as a gang symbol, but other students at the school may.”
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/07/minnesota-student-banned-from-wearing-rosary-beads-to-school/
