Black honor roll student receives 10-day school suspension for accidentally using fake money to pay for lunch ‘The whole process has been unfair’
An honor roll student at a Georgia middle school who paid for his lunch with the $20 bucks his dad handed him was handed down a 10-day suspension because the school claims the bill was fake.
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Christian Philon, a student at Austin Road Middle School in Henry County, was upset to learn that he was in trouble because he paid for his food with money that turned out to be counterfeit last Thursday, Channel 2 News reports.
“I was confused on how the money was counterfeit. And how my parents received it,” Christian said.
Still, Christian said even when he explained that he didn’t know that the bill was fake, school officials still penalized him.
“They said, ‘You possessed it, so you’re going to have to pay for it,’” Christian said.
His parents are outraged and said they didn’t know the bill was bogus. They plan to fight their 12-year-old’s suspension.
“I’ve never handled counterfeit money. I don’t know what it looks like,” father Earvin Philon said.
Philon said he was given the bill when he paid for his meal at a fast-food restaurant.
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“If we knew it, he wouldn’t have had it. But we didn’t know it,” mother Gwen Philon said.
Christian earns straight-A’s and is an athlete. After the incident he was sent to the assistant principal’s office and placed on in-school suspension.
The parents filed a police report to report the fake cash, but Christian still has to serve the penalty because he violated the code of conduct, a disciplinary panel decided last week.
“The whole process has been unfair,” Christian said.
