In my very similar case, I was suspended and subsequently offered to be sued or to quit school by the school board in my Mississippi hometown (100-200k pop). It was in 11th grade in 2002-2003. My mother was not even involved. I quit, because we were a poor family raking in $600/mo. Sue was an unfathomable word. Things worked out for me, but that's dumb luck.

My criminal case? I ran the ping -t from a windows cmd prompt to see if an IRC server (I administrated) had rebooted. Screenshot evidence of my hardship on their servers and the 'attack' on my own server could not be argued.

My earlier suspension (1064 pop town in MS) was for bringing a flute made from cane to school. It was a project item for art where we had to make a musical instrument. The cane was considered a physical assault device. I was suspended, had to walk home, and faced 3 months of Saturday school. My art teacher was the one who claimed it was a weapon.

My wife was driven home by the school principal (alone at 14) in the first town because she 'appeared drugged', and no parents were there and she was left on the porch. She was given a Benadryl for allergies. She was suspended afterwards.