Middle-schooler Iyan Goodson suspended for carrying prescription meds

A Cobb County mom says she's outraged over the 10-day suspension her son received after his own prescription medication fell out of his pocket in class.

She is aware that every school district in the state has strict drug policies, and strict punishments for breaking them.  But the mother of a student at Smitha Middle School in Cobb County says this time it was the district that went too far.

"I was highly upset, because my son has never been in trouble at school at all," says Tanisha Richardson. ”This is wrong. This is so wrong in so many ways."

Eighth-grader Iyan Goodson got thrown out of Smitha Middle this week after the marked pill bottle with the important attention deficit disorder medication prescribed by his doctor came out of his pocket in class.

"Some fell out because I guess it wasn't fully on. Some fell out. I had it out, but the teacher wanted me to give it to her. So, I gave it to her and she walked and came back and it wasn't in her hands," said Iyan Goodson.

Tanisha Richardson says she's outraged over the 10-day suspension her son got after his own prescription medication fell out of his pocket in class.

Then, Goodson and his mom got the news he couldn't come back until early September.

"Yeah, I was worried, but I was confused at the same time," Richardson said.

Richardson says Goodson only had the bottle with him that day because of a sleepover at a friend's house.  And while she understands now that that may have violated the district's controlled substance policy, she called the out-of-school suspension too heavy-handed.

"Ten days is not appropriate. I will accept it in-school suspension or detention. I would have accepted that," Richardson said.

She now worries the punishment will set her son back.

"A very big impact, because now he's missing days of stuff that he's going to be leaing and need for the rest of the year that he's going to have to go back and figure out how to do," she said.