'Cutting the cheese' cuts bus rides for  students

 

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, Nichols said.

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 yesterday.

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 hour long 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 yesterday.

Anthony's parents also are displeased that school officials made a "real stretch" to find an offense that could be cited to suspend the boys from the bus.

"Obscene gesture?" Nichols asked. "I wouldn't call him an angel, but for passing gas on the bus?"

Nichols said his wife was more upset, given a recent health problem.

"As a sufferer of gastro-intestinal issues who was recently hospitalized for these issues, I take great offense to passing gas being cause for suspension and marked as an obscene gesture,"

o