'She Picked the Coffee as Her Fight': Senior Suspended as School Admits Hearing Notice Wasn't Clear

A high school student body president was suspended at a New York school after refusing to throw away a coffee bought from an outside shop, prompting the district to admit it had not properly told parents and pupils they could speak before the drinks ban was approved.

Honours student Julie Kaputa, who attends Beaver River Central School in Castorland, was sent to the office on 3 September after walking into her first-period class with a latte from local shop Moving Mountains.

Her teacher told her to discard it, drink it immediately or leave, and she chose to go to the office, where she was handed an in-school suspension under a new rule banning food and drink brought in from outside vendors.

Julie said the coffee itself was not the issue. 'There was no public hearing to discuss it,' she told local station WWNY, adding that transparency in government mattered to her 'a lot' and that she simply wanted 'the system to work as it is meant to'.

Mother Questions Public Hearing

The rule, introduced for the 2026-27 school year under the district's 'Standards for Community-Wide Conduct', requires pupils arriving with outside food or drink to finish it before entering school.

Julie's mother, MaryAnne Kaputa, argues the board did not hold a properly advertised public hearing before adopting the change, which she says state law requires.

In a Facebook post, MaryAnne said the board meeting minutes were posted only after she queried their absence, and officials had 'no record of a public hearing'.

She said last year's policy had barred outside food deliveries unless staff approved them, but had not stopped pupils bringing food or drink to eat during the day or at after-school events.

The new rule on outside vendors, she argued, was a 'substantial change' that could not be enforced without a hearing, and she said petitions were already 'circling locally' among students, staff and parents who found it 'overly restrictive and unenforceable'.

Superintendent Admits Notice Was Unclear

Superintendent Todd Green issued a statement on 10 September saying the district's August board meeting had, in effect, served as the public hearing on the code of conduct, including the coffee rule, but conceded the notice had not been explicit enough.

'While our annual review process mirrors a public hearing in practice, we acknowledge the advance notice did not explicitly say "Public Hearing", and the public may not have realised they could speak before the Board acted,' Green wrote, calling it an administrative detail.

It is not clear whether the district accepts that a separate, formally advertised hearing was legally required, or whether it considers the August meeting sufficient under state law.

Green told WWNY it was 'good to see students standing up for what they believe in', noting such pushback 'often doesn't happen', and said the district would 'change or fix' its procedures where problems were identified.

He added that the food and drink rule was meant to 'enhance the learning environment' and support a calm, focused school day. MaryAnne later said the confrontation had eased once Julie challenged staff over the process, with administrators letting her return to class, coffee in hand.

She called them 'reasonable and rational administrators that are willing to listen... with some prompting', and said her daughter had treated the stand-off as 'a form of civil disobedience', knowing the rule when she walked in that morning.

'She picked the coffee as her fight because as the Student Body President she had the support for all of her classmates on this issue,' MaryAnne wrote.

The district has scheduled a fresh public hearing for Monday 14 September, at which the board will formally revisit the food and drink policy, and MaryAnne said several students had been invited to help rewrite the section.