Brandy McKenith returned to her second-grade class yesterday at Sunnyside Elementary School in Stanton Heights, where she had an uneventful day, talking about "stuff" with her classmates.

	Brandy McKenith, 7 at home in Stanton Heights with her father Wayne McKenith, is a second grader at Sunnyside Elementary. She was suspended for a day for using the word "hell" in school. (Bill Wade, Post-Gazette)

"Not bad stuff," she clarified.

Saying "bad stuff" -- or at least what the Pittsburgh Public Schools considers as such -- earned the 7-year-old from Stanton Heights a one-day suspension from school Tuesday.

Brandy said she used the word "hell" in art class after a classmate said "I swear to God."

"You're going to go to hell for swearing to God," she said she told the classmate.

A classmate reported the incident to the teacher, resulting in the suspension by the school principal.

Brandy's parents questioned the appropriateness of the punishment. Wayne McKenith, Brandy's father, said he plans to talk to an attorney.

"I've made repeated calls to school board members but evidently the matter wasn't important enough for them to return my calls," he said.

The district's Code of Student Conduct has one reference to profanity but does not define it.

District spokeswoman Pat Crawford declined to comment on the case, citing state and federal confidentiality laws.

Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he was "flabbergasted."

"It's hard to imagine that the school could make the word 'hell' illegal under all circumstances. Certainly, as used by Brandy in this case, that's not profanity," he said.

Walczak said the school should apologize to Brandy and clarify its policies.