Kids Rock; Moms Have to Sit it Out

Three parents who let their daughters skip school for a rock concert have volunteered to serve detention time in the principal’s office in place of their children.

“I’m 33 years old and I’m taking my first detention ever,” Chris Thompson said. “Everyone I’ve told this to thinks it’s the funniest thing they ever heard.”

Chris Thompson; her husband, Paul, and a neighbor, Colleen Lupiezowiec, said they will serve their daughters’ detention time Wednesday when the students are off from school because of an administrative day.

They said they allowed their daughters, junior high school students, to take a day off so they could attend a concert in Milwaukee by New Kids on the Block.

The concert was not scheduled to begin until 7 p.m., but Lupiezowiec said she and the children left in the early afternoon because she had business to conduct in Milwaukee, about 70 miles away.

Chris Thompson says her daughter, Melissa, was home sick in the morning but went to the concert anyway. “I think she would have left if she had the plague, she was that excited about it,” she said.

Michael Buehler, superintendent of Cambridge schools, said the pupils would have been excused if they and their parents had told the school the truth. Instead, the daughters were given detentions, but school officials agreed to let the parents serve the time.

“The parents came up with a novel idea that shows accountability, and being a good role model means owning up when you do something wrong or don’t use the best of judgment,” Buehler said.

Lupiezowiec said she will sit in Principal Lowell Holtz’s office for seven hours--3 1/2 hours for each for her two daughters.