Judge’s slamming of Catholic school suspension exposed.
A private Catholic school found itself under fire after a controversial suspension sparked outrage—and now, a judge has spoken.
Shocking Catholic school incident explained.
What started as a seemingly routine school day ended with police, a courtroom battle, and a ruling that’s turning heads nationwide.
At the center of it: a sixth-grader, a single bullet, and a decision that one judge called “appalling.”
The case unfolded in Virginia Beach, where St. John the Apostle Catholic School suspended a student over how he reported a classmate’s dangerous mistake.
But it’s not what he did—it’s when he did it that landed him in trouble.
The boy, referred to in court as A.W., was taking a standardized test when a classmate showed him something alarming: a bullet.
A real bullet. No gun. Just a cold, metallic round of ammunition in the palm of a sixth-grader’s hand.
Faced with the shocking moment, A.W. made a split-second decision: stay calm, finish the test, and then report it.
Roughly two hours later, after completing the exam and transitioning to his next class, he walked to the principal’s office.
There, he calmly explained what he saw. Administrators called police. Officers recovered the bullet from the classmate’s backpack.
Crisis averted. No one was harmed. No threats were made. Just a potentially dangerous object—and a student who eventually did the right thing.
But the school didn’t see it that way.
A.W’s punishment revealed.
Instead, A.W. was suspended for a day and a half—the exact same punishment given to the student who brought the bullet.
Yes, the reporter and the offender were treated equally—and that’s what ignited the legal firestorm.
His mother, Rachel Wigand, wasn’t having it. She sued the school, claiming they breached their tuition contract and unjustly punished her son.
Her attorney, Tim Anderson, argued that a suspension for A.W. was excessive and damaging to his academic record.
“A suspension on a child’s academic record is permanent,” Anderson said. “What happened to her child was so absurd.”
He continued: “It wasn’t fair that the mom was going to have to answer that question—‘Has your kid ever been suspended?’—for the rest of his academic life.”
Anderson pointed out that there were other ways to handle the situation: detention, a conversation, even a written assignment.
But instead, the school chose the harshest route, claiming it was a necessary lesson in urgency and responsibility.
School administrators leaned on language from the student handbook, saying they had discretion to impose any level of discipline they deemed fit.
They argued the suspension was meant to “set a standard” for how quickly students must report threats.
In her ruling, she called A.W. “the unfortunate victim in the matter” and openly criticized the school’s decision-making.
“Appalling, for lack of a better word,” Henderson said during the hearing, obtained by NBC News.
She pointed to a larger issue—that young kids are being asked to make adult-level decisions without guidance or support.
Since the incident, A.W. has reportedly endured bullying from classmates, according to his mother.
Wigand now plans to remove all her children from St. John the Apostle, saying the environment no longer feels safe or supportive.
The ruling was clear: the school acted unfairly, and the punishment didn’t match the student’s actual behavior—or intent.
School bullet incident sparks debate.
A.W. may have hesitated, but he didn’t hide the truth. He spoke up. Just not on the school’s preferred timeline.
And now, thanks to the court’s decision, his record is clean—but the damage, Wigand says, has already been done.
One child’s thoughtful silence during a test became a national controversy—and a judge just made sure his voice was finally heard.