ONE WHO DARED: GIRL SUFFERS REPERCUSSIONS AFTER REPORTING DRUGS AT SCHOOL

JACKSON -- Only two months ago, Lindsay Siebert was a typical 13-year-old with typical interests. She liked movies, surfing the Internet and seeing her friends at Jackson Middle School.

Then she learned a hard fact of life: It's not always easy to do what you're told.

Lindsay said she was standing in the school hallway with a friend when another seventh-grade student came running up and stopped the girls to show them a plastic bag full of what he said was marijuana.

The incident bothered Lindsay, who decided to go to the principal. She naively wrote him a note that read: "Dr. Beard, one of the students brought marijuana to school." She signed it "Anonymous."

When Lindsay went to the office to leave the note, she said, Beard was there. She handed him the note, told him about the incident and who was involved, then went back to class. Later, she said, the boy was spotted leaving the school and crying.

The next day, his friends went into action.

"The whole day, no matter where I was, they were behind me saying, `You did it, and now we're going to kick your butt," Lindsay said.

There are differing accounts of whether the substance in the plastic bag was marijuana or not, but the boy received a short-term suspension. He returned a week later and joined his friends in threatening Lindsay.

Her parents, Dennis and Cindi Siebert, refused to let her go anywhere without them or one of her two older brothers. Finally, when school was out for Presidents' Day, they allowed Lindsay and a friend to go to West Park Mall in Cape Girardeau.

Four hostile girls from school were there. Lindsay said one threw a cup of water on her, then another punched her in the face. Lindsay took refuge in the County Seat clothing store, where employees let her use the phone to call her father and helped her report the incident.

The girl who hit Lindsay was banned temporarily from the mall. Manager Jim Govro said if a security guard sees her on the property, she will be arrested for trespassing.

"There were witnesses saying this girl slugged another girl in the face," he said. "I can't condone that."

But Lindsay still had to attend school with her attackers. The day after the fight, Feb. 20, was the last time she went to Jackson Middle School. Now she is seeing a child psychologist for counseling, and her parents are waiting to find out if she qualifies for home-bound schooling provided by the district.

Cindi Siebert said the worst aspect of the whole experience was that her daughter suffered for following the advice she got through Drug Awareness and Resistance Education, taught sixth-grade students in Jackson. If other kids see what happened to Lindsay, she said, they might not resist drugs or tell an adult when drugs are on campus.

"The DARE program is fabulous, and the DARE officer has been fabulous," Siebert said. "But the kids who have seen Lindsay go forward told her they would never tell. They're learning at age 13 not to get involved."

Adult support is the key, Siebert said. She was appalled to hear an adult direct Lindsay simply to fight the other students, telling her she was a "big girl."

Howard Hammers, the DARE officer in Jackson, declined to discuss the Sieberts' case specifically, but said he supports anyone who goes to a responsible adult to report drug activity.

"If someone offers drugs to you, you have a decision to make," Hammers said. "The right decision is saying no. Then you have another decision, whether to tell an adult or the police.

"I would personally back a kid 100 percent, all the way, if he would turn somebody in."

There probably won't be a steady flow of middle school students revealing drug use. Dr. Howard Jones, Jackson superintendent, said Lindsay wasn't the only student he has found who fears going to school.

It's a problem that has been present ever since schools were founded, he said. Jones would prefer schools be sanctuaries for learning rather than places to be feared, but laws make that goal difficult to reach, he said.

"Public schools get all the kids, and we have an obligation, not only to accept them, but also work with them through any means," Jones said. "Every once in awhile, we get one we can't deal with. We try different things, but finally they have to go somewhere else."

So far, the girls involved in the incident haven't gone anywhere else, leaving Lindsay to wait for possible home-bound schooling approval.

She isn't ready to face the abuse again.

"Adults are saying, `You should go back to school and set an example,'" Lindsay said. "I'm like, do you want me to die setting an example?"