Long Island student suspended for attending in-person classes when he was supposed to be remote

A Long Island high school senior was suspended for attending in-person classes at the school even though he was supposed to be remote as a part of the hybrid learning schedule.

Maverick Stow, 17, a senior at William Floyd High School, showed up to class on Tuesday morning because he believes he should be in school five days a week.

The school divided up groups of students to attend in-person and remote classes on different days in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

A teacher noticed he was not on the roster to attend in-person classes that day and he was called to the principal’s office.

Stow said administrators asked him to leave school grounds and he refused saying, ‘Well, no, I think I need to go to class. This is during class time.’

Stow said he left the principal’s office, went back to class, and finished the day without being stopped.

At the end of the school day, he was informed he’d be suspended for five days.

‘I was going to school like students should be going to school. I think that a five-day suspension is out of line,’ he said to ABC7.

Stow’s parents were outraged that he was punished for trying to go to school as normal.

‘Kids need to be in school every day. Virtual learning is not learning,’ his mother Nora Kaplan-Stow said.

‘My son is being suspended because he wants to be in school,’ she added.

Richard Stow said his son had briefed them on his plan to attend classes, in defiance of the hybrid learning schedule.

‘He’s a very smart kid. He knows what he’s doing. When he said this is how he wanted to handle things, we were like, “Then go for it,”‘ he said.

The school district said Stow showed up to school again on Wednesday despite his suspension and ‘squared up’ a district official, saying the district would have to ‘forcibly remove him’ from school grounds.

The school district says police are now involved in the incident.

The William Floyd School district issued a statement saying while they agree with Maverick’s notion that school should be held in person five days a week, the school must follow ‘social distancing requirements set forth by the state’.

‘When it is deemed safe to do so by our government and health officials, we will gladly welcome all of our 8,800 students back,’ the statement says.

‘His rights as a student do not surpass the rights of the other 8,799 students we have the privilege of educating. If his goal is to get school open five days per week, he is encouraged to take his advocacy to his state elected officials,’ the district added.

Suffolk County suffered from an outbreak of COVID-19 in the spring months that led to 2,000 deaths and more than 45,000 infections as of Wednesday’s count.