WATCH ABOVE: A Lethbridge student is being disciplined for satisfying the sweet tooth of his classmates. Kendra Slugoski explains.
LETHBRIDGE – Rebellious behaviour or simply cashing in on a great business opportunity? That’s the debate surrounding a suspended Winston Churchill High School student. Keenan Shaw has been satisfying the sweet tooth of many peers in his school for years.
Let’s face it, it’s not often you see a high school student carting an entire case of pop on his skate board on his way to school. But for Shaw it’s all business. As part of his school’s updated nutrition policy, only diet pops can be purchased from the vending machine. So he decided to open up shop from his locker.
“At the beginning of the year, I went to get a pop and I noticed they weren’t selling it. So I went over to the Safeway bought a case and brought it back during lunch and sold it all within twenty minutes.”
He’s been in business off and on for the past three years. It’s an idea that came to him during an entrepreneurial class and ever since, he’s been cashing in. Until this week.
“Last Thursday they warned me that if I kept selling pop that they would sever the school and student bond. And when I asked what that means, he basically told me I would no longer be a student at Winston Churchill.”
Though he was asked to stop selling pop, Shaw never did and was suspended on Wednesday for two days. Lethbridge School District No. 51 President Cheryl Gilmore says a suspension can’t come from selling pop.
“I would say that we would never suspend a student for selling a pop.”
Shaw said the reason for the suspension was for violating the school division’s marketing and distribution policy, as well as Winston Churchill’s nutrition policy. Although Superintendent Cheryl Gilmore wouldn’t speak directly to Shaw’s situation, she did address general suspension policies.
“There’s different things that would lead up to a suspension,” said Gilmore. “It would need to be consistent and pervasive. So if a student continues to be persistent in not following the direction of a principal for example.”
Shaw returned to school Friday. As for the future of his business?
“Technically I can’t sell it within the school, but I guess I could always go out to the sidewalk and sell it. still got a full case.”
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