My kid got expelled after 'Dora the Explorer' actress peer pressured her into vaping

The parents of a teenager booted from her elite Manhattan private school for vaping say she was a victim of a bad influence — Dora the Explorer.

Well, at least the voice actress for Dora in the popular Nickelodeon show, who, the parents say in their Manhattan civil suit against the school, pressured her into smoking out of a vape pen, leading to her expulsion, while the actress Dora-girl got just a three-day suspension.

Parents Nadia Leonelli and Fredrik Sundwall say in their Manhattan civil suit that they helped found the $40,000-a-year Chelsea school Avenues: The World School.

But on Dec. 10, their 14-year-old, referred to only by her initials, M.S., in court papers, “was approached by her friend, F.P., who is a year older in 10th grade at Avenues, to go into the bathroom and try smoking flavored water vapor in a ‘vape’ pen that F.P. had borrowed from a fellow 10th grade classmate,” according to court papers.

The suit says M.S. “was reluctant to try but gave in to peer pressure, wanting to appear ‘cool’ in front of F.P. because she is older than M.S. and is a celebrity, being the actress who does the voice of Dora the Explorer on television and having a movie nominated for the Oscars.”

Fatima Ptacek, 15, is the lead voice in the current iteration of the series, “Dora and Friends: Into the City!” The Queens teen also appeared in the 2013 Oscar-winning short film “Curfew.”

Leonelli and Sundwall complain in the suit that the girls were disciplined even though there wasn’t any tobacco or drugs in the vape pen, only caramel-flavored water.

But the true injustice, the suit says, is that child star Ptacek was only suspended for three days while their daughter was forced to withdraw and enroll in a new school mid-year.

The parents believe their daughter was the “scapegoat” and Ptacek got off because of her celebrity.

They’ve spent over $10,000 in legal fees fighting the school’s “inappropriate decision” and haven’t been refunded any of the $40,000 tuition even though the expulsion was just a few months into the school year, the suit says.

Reps for the school and Ptacek did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Link to article: http://nypost.com/2016/04/11/parents-blame-dora-the-explorer-for-expelled-teens-vaping-habit/

Thoughts about this?

 

This is a little insane. Well, totally insane. I can't really comment about it beyond that, holy crap! Also, link the article when you post it so we can read it on the site. Thanks!

 

Edited the post to link the article. I completely agree with you though, it is insane. I didn't understand what they meant with the title so I had to open the website to read the article. After I did, I still didn't understand! Thought it was going to be a silly joke, but it wasn't. Oh well.

 

It's times like that that you have to do a double take and make sure you're not reading the Onion or some other satirical website! Anyway, thanks for sharing. So bizarre!

 

Wow! It seems pretty obvious the Dora The Explorer actress got off easy because she's famous. I think if one girl gets expelled then they both should... It's only fair.

 

Hm yes. I still can't wrap my head around this story. So many questions, so little answers.

 

I had to make sure I wasn't on Reddit. This story is quite disheartening, especially if there was no actual juice involved. What's the current situation BTW?

 

I think that celebrities need to understand just how much they influence young people (and not so young people, actually) by the actions that they take in their daily lives. They have a huge amount of publicity and that means that anything they do can be made to seem like a natural behaviour, so people are likely to copy them a lot of the time. We should try, as individuals, not to be swayed by what other people are doing - and remember that we are strong and independent enough to make our own choices in life!

 

Well I'm guessing that vaping in school is a punishable offence, an at that age I do get that, so for me it comes down to the two different punishments imposed.

While one girl is punished for vaping, the other girl is only ounushed for supplying the bmvaoe I guess, but with her being older, then she should have known better anyway.

If I was in charge then they would have both been suspended for the same amount of time and then that would have been that as far as I was concerned.

 

I'd actually praise them for choosing vaping over smoking.

 

While I understand what you mean, at that age it's illegal to do either, so there will have to be rules put in place in a school if it's the law outside of it aswell.

Just the punishment in this case that seems excessive, especially as one was a lot more lenient for one girl than it was for the other.

 

Man, I hate this story. This is so badass. I just want to be able to say this about my kids one day...f*ckin with the wrong crowd...those damn dora the explorer voice actors...

 

I know, I always knew there was something dodgy about those voice actors on the kids shows. Secretly manipulating our children while acting all sweet and innocent, haha!

 

Such a badass story!
And also shows how peer pressure works and makes or does not make our kids do stuff. Liked it!

 

Peer pressure is a harsh mistress, let's just hope justice will prevail in the end,