Ashley Smithwick is upset she has been suspended for the rest of her senior year and slapped with a weapons charge, she claimed. The paring knife school officials found in her lunchbox is actually her father’s, she told the press. She accidentally took her dad’s lunchbox to her Southern Lee High School in October.
The school board decided to suspend Smithwick and police charged her with misdemeanor possession of a weapon on school grounds, Fox News reports.
Apparently, the lunchbox belonged to her father, who uses a paring knife to slice his apple. Student lunchboxes were being investigated during a marijuana search, and that’s when officials found the small knife in Smithwick’s lunchbox, the 17-year-old said.
Ashley told local media outlet WFMY News 2: “When you have a criminal record, no school’s gonna look at you. I mean, I have a pretty nice talent. I’m good at playing soccer. And that talent is just wasted now.”
She is not allowed to step foot on campus, as well, WFMY reported.
But school officials deny her allegations. In a WRAL story, “Lee County Schools Superintendent Jeff Moss said in a statement on Wednesday that the 3-inch-long knife was found in the teen’s purse, not her lunchbox.”
Moss also added she is currently enrolled as a student at the school.
Smithwick and her family have not yet responded to Moss’s statements.
