Mountain Creek State High School suspends Jacob Ashby for urinating

A Sunshine Coast high school student has been dealt what his mum claims is an ‘excessive’ punishment after he answered nature’s call during rugby league training.

A case of nature calling has cost a Mountain Creek State High School student 10 days out of the classroom.

Jacob Ashby, 14, was at rugby league training at the school’s oval on Wednesday, August 17, 2022 when he needed to use the bathroom, making his way over to some dense bush to urinate, facing away from the school.

His mother Heidi Harper told the Sunshine Coast Daily a teacher spotted Jacob mid-stream and reported it to the school’s leadership team.

Ms Harper was baffled when she discovered her son had been suspended from school for 10 days, a punishment she believed was overly disproportionate to what happened.

“It is excessive and over the top … his bum wasn’t exposed and he gets 10 days’ suspension, there are kids doing worse stuff than that,” Ms Harper said.

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“Is the punishment fitting to the crime, surely take him to the office but 10 days’ suspension?”

Jacob’s mum said she contacted the school’s leadership team and debated the suspension and Ms Harper said the school was depriving her son of an education as he had exams coming up.

Ms Harper said her son wasn’t aware it was a bad thing to do and questioned whether there were enough toilet facilities at the school for the students.

“I’ll be the first one to admit, if a child does something wrong I always back the teachers, and I thought they would’ve given him a detention,” she said.

High school student at home during his suspension. Photo: Patrick Woods.

“There are kids smoking in the dunnies and being caught with drugs and getting suspended for three days.

“Then there’s others wagging school and they get suspended, where’s the sense in that?”

Ms Harper said conversations with the school have come to a head and the school had confirmed it would not scrap her son’s suspension.

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“Jake’s a good kid and I don’t like to see him get blamed and he honestly didn’t know peeing in public was a naughty thing to do,” she said.

“It was the way we brought him up, but to think they didn’t just give him detention and speak to him, which would have been sufficient.”

A Department of Education spokeswoman said like all Queensland state schools, Mountain Creek State High School had a Student Code of Conduct that identified the school’s expectations about behaviour and outlined the possible range of consequences, such as suspension, that may be used to respond to inappropriate behaviour.

“In line with the school’s Student Code of Conduct, the incident was fully investigated and a determination was made by the principal,” the spokeswoman said.

“The parent has been made aware of the Mountain Creek SHS complaints management process, as well as Regional Office complaint processes.”