13-Year Old Threatened With Expulsion From School For Decorating School Binder With Photo Of Brother, An Active Duty Soldier

When Brianna Gentry started sporting a photograph of her brother Derrick, a military policeman presently stationed in Montana, on her notebook binder, school officials tried to bully the 8th-grader and told her to remove the photo showing her brother in uniform from the binder or she would be expelled.

Gentry is enrolled in a special school program for gifted and advanced students called AVID. According to Brianna, a school "counselor took me out of class twice telling me that the pictures aren't AVID material."

According to TheDailyMail, the school sent a copy of the AVID program rules home with Brianna and advised her to have her mother "re-read" them. The request didn't sit well with Brianna who told a local television station, KTLA: "But they haven't pulled out any other students with pictures out from their class. Just me." Brianna's mother, Jaima Eudy, didn't accept the school's assessment of the situation either as "AVID rules" read that all AVID students must "maintain the AVID binder with assignments, grade sheets, and daily notes as required." Eudy refused to back down and advised school officials that all required materials "are in her [Brianna's] binder and will remain in her binder. The contract does not say a student cannot have pictures in the outside sleeve. ... We will follow the rules set forth which do not include the removal of photos." Fortunately, TheDailyMail reports that school officials backed down, sheepishly explaining that "the rule is based on interpretation. Having a neat, clean binder is a matter of opinion." Bravo... our hats go off to this brave mother, her gifted daughter and the young man who is presently serving his country.  What a family!