The mother of a girl involved in the case of a 6-year-old Cañon City school boy being suspended for a second violation of giving a classmate unwanted kisses said she feels the school district has done a “great job” in protecting her daughter “from sexual harassment.”

Cañon City School District officials defended their decision Tuesday to impose a recent two-day suspension on a first-grade student at Lincoln School of Science & Technology after his mother, Jennifer Saunders, said he kissed a female classmate on the cheek in November and then kissed the same girl on the hand Dec. 4.

The girl’s mother, Jade Masters-Ownbey, spoke out on a Facebook page and gave permission to the Daily Record to publish her response.

“Not once, but over and over…not with her permission but sneaking up on her…not without warning and consequences prior to suspension,” she stated.

Superintendent Dr. Robin Gooldy said under the district’s sexual harassment policy, the fourth definition fits both circumstances, which reads, “Unwelcome touching, such as patting, pinching or repeated brushing against another’s body.”

Ownbey stated there originally were two boys who had “kept her (daughter) from playing with other kids and fought with each other.”

“After they got in trouble, one boy stopped but the other boy apparently didn’t get it,” she stated. “I had to put restrictions on her about which she was allowed to be around at school. I’ve had to coach her about what to do when you don’t want someone touching you, but they won’t stop.”

Lincoln Principal Tammy DeWolfe said Tuesday that any time a misbehavior or a violation of school conduct is reported to a teacher or a principal, she moves forward with an investigation to gather accurate information about what really happened.

“Then we continue to work with the families,” she said. “Our goal is to ultimately get that inappropriate behaviors to stop.”

She said the school would “never suspend a student for one minor little violation,” adding that typically there are things that build up to suspension level where the behaviors have not changed over time and/or they continue.

“Our job as a school is to basically maintain a safe learning environment for all children in the school, and that’s certainly what we’re trying to do here,” she said.

Ownbey stated her daughter’s older brother has felt like he needed to protect her at school.

“In elementary school, when a boy kisses a girl, the usual response of their peers is ‘ewwww,'” she stated. “So why do the other kids rush to tell? Because they’ve seen it over and over, they’ve seen him repeatedly get in trouble for it, they’ve seen the girl repeatedly tell him to stop, they know it’s wrong.”

Saunders said her son was placed on in-school suspension for the first offense, and he was given a two-day suspension for the most recent. She said she feels the discipline was appropriate, but having sexual harassment on his record is wrong.

“He is 6 years old, and that is absolutely ridiculous for him to have ‘sexual harassment’ on his record, even it is (only on the district’s) record,” she said.

Gooldy said the policy infractions will be on the student’s discipline record only while he is in the Cañon City School District, after that they go away. He made it clear that law enforcement is not involved, and no criminal charges have been brought against the boy.

“It’s strictly a school discipline issue,” he said.

Ownbey expressed hope that people would not “start bashing the school that is doing a great job protecting my child from what is sexual harassment.”