As for Aaron Leese, he was charged with making a terroristic threat and thrown in a holding cell for the afternoon. "My thought was that they wanted to scare me a bit so that I would bend to the system," he says. The charge was dropped after he submitted to a 90-day probation and a psychiatric evaluation. Leese was ordered to stay off school property, forcing him to miss all the senior activities planned for the end of the year--a banquet, a picnic, a dance. Then his principal, Superintendent Linda Hippert, relented. "I felt that Aaron needed to be punished, but my assumption after the investigation was that the punishment did not fit the crime," says Hippert. "I know Aaron very well, and what he was denied was above and beyond what he had done." With her blessing, Leese was allowed to graduate with his class.
PHOTO (COLOR): At an Indianapolis public school, a security guard uses a metal detector to check a seven-year-old student for possible weapons.
