SLIPPERY OCK — With the latest action, an attorney for the family of Autum Bennett is asking the state Supreme Court to protect the rights of students caught in school disciplinary action.

The Slippery Rock Middle School girl was expelled Jan. 22 after she was accused of leaving a bomb threat at the school.

The district and the girl's family have since argued in the courts that Autum should return to classes in the district.

In asking the state Supreme Court to consider an appeal, attorney Victor Vouga said the disciplinary process the district used was unfair.

More schools are dealing with "quasi-criminal acts," Vouga said, and there is a need for more guidelines on how schools investigate and discipline the students involved.

For example, Vouga said, in Autum's case, the discipline process moved so quickly he was unable to get handwriting experts to examine the threatening note left in the middle school bathroom.

Autum, then 12, told a friend about the note, and together they told a teacher. The teacher reported the incident to the principal, who called the state police.

Autum wrote a confession to police saying she had left the note, but later recanted and has since said she is innocent.

"There's so much of zero tolerance," Vouga said. "Students need protection."

".. (W)hen more school districts are adopting ill-conceived, draconian 'zero-tolerance' polices, school boards are being increasingly called upon to perform serious judicial roles involving decisions that have lasting, if not permanent, effects on young children," Vouga wrote in his petition to the Supreme Court.

Because of this power given to school districts without regulations, Vouga said districts need to have safeguards for students.

Vouga also is asking the court to consider hearing this appeal because he believes the decision of the Butler County Court, which reversed the school board's decision to expel Autum, was correct. Judge Marilyn Horan found the district did not have enough evidence to expel the girl.

That decision was appealed by the school district and at the end of August, the state courts reversed Horan's decision and reinstated her suspension.

This year, Autum is attending Portersville Christian Academy.

Michael Hnath, solicitor for Slippery Rock School District, declined to comment Tuesday because the litigation is ongoing.