CONCORD STUDENTS SENT HOME FROM EUROPE TRIP SUING SCHOOL

Two students sent home from Europe last year after allegedly imbibing on a
band trip are suing Concord High School, the Mount Diablo Unified School
District, chaperones and other officials.

The lawsuit, filed late Tuesday on behalf of students Keke Kaste and Jordan
Stock, claims negligence, infliction of emotional distress, slander and
libel. The teenagers and their families are asking unspecified exemplary
and punitive damages.

Last March, the two teenagers, then 14 and 15, traveled with the Concord
High band on a weeklong tour of Germany and Austria. While in the medieval
town of Rothenburg, Germany, Keke, Jordan and two other students stopped at
a cafe and ordered a nonalcoholic ``Irish Cream Coffee,'' according to the
lawsuit.

A chaperone traveling with the band observed the students drinking and
asked a waitress what she had served them. The waitress, who could not
speak En glish, indicated she had served the teens an alcoholic Irish
Coffee.

That same night, both Keke and Jordan were separately ``interrogated'' by
chaperones. School officials falsely told both teenagers that other
students had admitted drinking alcohol, court papers contend. Chaperones
told the rest of the touring musicians that Keke and Jordan had been caught
drinking.

Two days later, the teens were awakened, told to pack and put on a plane
home from the Munich airport without supervision despite concerns from
airline officials and local police that the students should not fly alone,
the suit states.

Four weeks later, a ``slanderous and libelous'' article describing the
incident appeared in the school newspaper written by the son of one of the
trip chaperones, according to the lawsuit.

Parents involved in the school's band booster group have conducted ``a
campaign of character assassination'' against Keke and admitted doing so to
the girl's parents, court papers allege.

School officials, including Concord High Principal Bonnie Warner, declined
to comment yesterday, saying they had not yet seen the lawsuit.

The teens' attorney, Dan Ryan, said his clients to this day are not sure
what they drank.

``What occurred over there, it was ridiculous,'' Ryan said. ``It's
reprehensible. These kids were isolated, put into a Star Chamber type of
proceeding and then sent home alone. They're not sure to this day they ever
had alcohol. And no one will know for sure because no testing was ever
done.''