After an opposing player elbowed her 14-year-old daughter in the nose during a Hilliard Davidson High School basketball game in January, Toni Baker shared some advice with the offender.

After an opposing player elbowed her 14-year-old daughter in the nose during a Hilliard Davidson High School basketball game in January, Toni Baker shared some advice with the offender.

She said she told her �good game� but that she needed to be more careful, because she could have broken her daughter�s nose. If it happened again, Baker told her, she would get her kicked off the Thomas Worthington High basketball team.

No one except Baker's other daughter witnessed the conversation. A week later, Baker received a letter from Hilliard City Schools saying she was permanently barred from stepping onto district property, or attending any school function anywhere.

�You are being made aware that it is our intent to file criminal trespassing charges against you if you are found to be entering or on any Hilliard City School District property,� the February letter said.

Baker, 51, a single mom with twin girls in the Hilliard district, believes the district is retaliating against her for being critical of the handling of a special-education plan for one of her twins. The district says it banned Baker because of a compilation of issues, including student safety.

�There�s not like a checklist that we follow that says someone is banned or not banned,� said district spokeswoman Stacie Raterman.

Baker was banned for repeated use of foul language with Hilliard administrators and secretaries, harassment via hundreds of telephone calls, emails and visits to school, and failing to follow guidelines to correct her actions, Raterman said. �Verbally accosting� the student from the visiting basketball team was the final straw, Raterman said.

�While banning a parent is a last resort for our district, there comes a time when abusive behavior becomes disruptive to the educational process and becomes a drain on district resources,� Raterman said.

Many parents don�t realize until it�s too late that although a school is public property, they're not automatically allowed on it. Districts can revoke permission.

Columbus City Schools currently have 50 people who are banned from their buildings; Westerville City Schools has about 10. Raterman said Hilliard currently has a few others besides Baker.

A handwritten statement by the student who Baker spoke with after the game said Baker approached her in a hallway outside the locker room and said: �I was not to touch her daughter again.

"She told me that she almost went on the �damn� court herself, and that if she ever saw me doing something like that again she would have me taken off the team.�

Baker said in an interview that she used �dang,� not �damn,� but in an email to district officials she didn�t deny swearing, saying swear words are routine in high-school reading material, and commonly heard in school.

Baker said the problem is that there is no due process in issuing no-trespass letters, in which a disinterested third party could hear the facts and decide who�s being reasonable and who�s being childish. She obtained an email from a Worthington schools official that said that Hilliard officials �insisted� that the official file a complaint against Baker. A week after getting one, they banned her.

Baker said she is now considering moving.

bbush@dispatch.com

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