Students Discover This Bud Was Not For Them Mother Wants School To Apologize After Kids Suspended For Her Mistake

Call it the case of the mistaken cans.

On a typically harried morning, Judy Densmore-Mallette was attempting to pack three school lunches while trying to quiet her German shepherd, which was barking at the cockatiel.

She reached into the refrigerator, grabbed what she thought was a can of pop and stuck it inside her daughter Pam’s lunch box.

But the pop can actually was a can of beer.

And that mistake got her daughter and a friend suspended from school for five days.

The cans - of Pepsi and Budweiser Ice - look remarkably similar, and Densmore-Mallette has admitted the oversight. No one - not even the principal - has suggested that the 12-year-olds took the beer to school intentionally.

But school officials at Sherwood Forest Elementary School say there are no exceptions to their “no-tolerance” stance on drugs, alcohol and beer.

“The issue was that it was at school,” said Sandi McCord, assistant superintendent.

That - in spite of the fact that the children didn’t drink the beer and took it immediately to the principal’s office. Both are members of the DARE program - Drug Awareness Resistance Education - and get good grades and solid praise at school.

The children want an apology because, the way they see it, they didn’t do anything wrong.

On that Tuesday, Jan. 2, Pam Densmore-Mallette and Justin Williams had volunteered to help serve lunch to others in Sherwood Forest’s cafeteria. When they had finished, they sat on an unused food cart inside the kitchen area and began to eat their own lunches.

Pam pulled out the can. Justin, who didn’t have anything to drink, asked for a sip.

Pam handed the can to Justin who sipped a bit of liquid, then quickly spit it out. “It was beer. It was yucky,” Justin said.

Judy Densmore-Mallette says she plans to appeal to the school board on Jan. 22 and wants the suspensions overturned.

She says the school district has damaged the children by rigidly refusing to acknowledge a mistake was made.

“There’s a principle here,” Densmore-Mallette said. “I want my daughter to know that if she’s punished wrongly, if there’s a mistake, it’s right to fight. And it’s right for me to fight for her.”