Redding California

KDKA’s Ralph Iannotti report the students were playing with Kool-Aid and sugar in a zip-loc bag at school.

Sources say that fourteen students were suspended last week at Shenandoah Elementary School in the Penn Hills School District.

Those suspensions lasted a minimum of three days.

School officials said the students were mimicking drug activity and they wanted it brought to the attention of parents.

“I have no intentions whatsoever of letting a thing like this haunt my child," said parent Denise Brown Bey. "The principal did inform me that it was more than just my child. So my outrage is not simply because of my child, but because of all of the children."

Denise Brown Bey was stunned when her 11 year old son Johnathan, a Shenandoah Elementary School fifth grader, brought home a disciplinary notice letting her know that her son was being suspended.

"We're talking about something that, number one, is completely harmless," she said. "And long before they attached this kind of name to it, children have been mixing sugar and Kool-Aid for a very long period of time."

Two Penn Hills School Board members we spoke to said they were unaware of the issue until now.

They were both shocked by the harsh discipline being handed down.

"I think that we should have been notified with 14 kids being suspended for one incident," said board member Carolyn Faggioli.

"If they are going to suspend them for that, they had better step back and look at their priorities," said board member Erin Vecchio.

KDKA tried to get in touch with someone with the school administration, but no one returned our calls.

The Penn Hills public relations' contact is on vacation until next week.

This is the same school district where A child was expelled last week for bringing a plastic squirt gun to school.