A Minnesota Supreme Court hearing Monday on the suspension of a student for bringing a knife to school honed in on the meaning of the words "willful" and "endanger."

The six-week suspension from United South Central High School occurred nearly two years ago after Alyssa Drescher of Wells, Minn., brought a small folding knife tucked in her purse and stowed it in her locker. Drescher, a junior at the time, said she used the knife for farm chores and forgot that it was in her purse.

"A student who carries a knife into the school building certainly has carelessly disregarded the school's weapons policy and endangered others," Independent School District No. 2134 lawyer Trevor Helmers said in his argument to the court.

Drescher, an honors student and peer counselor at the time, has since graduated and gone on to college. The court case has continued in large part because the outcome will affect how educators throughout the state mete out discipline to students with weapons.

After she was suspended by the district under the Pupil Fair Dismissal Act (PFDA), the state Department of Education upheld the decision. The Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the suspension, saying Drescher didn't willfully violate school policy or engage in conduct that endangered herself or others.

In seeking an overturn by the state's highest court, the school district, with support from various administrative groups, said the appellate decision in favor of Drescher would make it "extraordinarily difficult for the state's 508 school districts to protect the 20,000 students they serve."

The district's petition said that, for the first time in 41 years, the appellate court had reinterpreted the grounds for dismissal and established "new standards" that would "drastically undermine the ability of school districts to keep weapons out of schools."

In the 2013-14 school year, the state Department of Education listed 1,230 weapons incidents. Helmers told the court that the case revolves around two words: "willful," which he defined as "careless disregard" and "endanger," which he described as "to bring into danger."

Justice Natalie Hudson said that, to her, "willful" means something other than "careless disregard; it means intentional, it means on purpose, it means deliberate, so why do we even go beyond that?"

Helmers said that student discipline under the PFDA is intended to be a quick process without lawyers involved.

Justice Christopher Dietzen interrupted him, saying that Helmers wasn't answering Hudson's question. "Do you disagree that the plain and ordinary meaning of willful is, 'said or done on purpose?' " Dietzen asked.

Helmers said, "In this context, I don't believe that is the plain meaning of willful."

Dietzen responded that he had just read the meaning from a dictionary and asked, "Isn't that what we would use to interpret the meaning of the word?"

Helmers said the meaning is "ambiguous" in the context of school discipline violation.

In her arguments, Drescher's lawyer, Andrea Jepsen, said reversing the ruling on the case now would be a serious hardship for her client.

"It seems to me that the Legislature could not have intended for a student to lose her right to an education because of some remote potential for danger. In this case, nobody knew about this young woman's knife — including her," Jepsen said, adding that the potential for danger was "so remote."

The knife surfaced after drug-sniffing dogs led authorities to Drescher's locker, likely because of a strong odor of perfume.

Drescher said she had thrown the knife in her purse and forgotten about it. She used the knife to cut twine on bales of hay while helping her boyfriend, who lives on a farm. School policy forbids weapons on school property.

The Supreme Court is being asked to consider whether a "willful violation" of school policy requires that a student be aware of the policy and make a "deliberate, conscious, and intentional choice to violate" it in order to be expelled.

The Supreme Court faces no deadline for issuing a ruling, but generally takes at least four months to issue a decision.

Only five justices will decide the case. Along with Dietzen, Hudson and Stras, they are Chief Justice Laurie Gildea and Justice G. Barry Anderson.

Rochelle Olson • 612-673-1747

Twitter: @rochelleolson