A Michigan middle schooler should be receiving praise for being a hero, but instead, he’s been expelled from school. 

In May, Sakir Everett, 11, saw a classmate with a gun, so he took it from him, disabled it, and removed the bullets. Not wanting the classmate to get in trouble, Sakir didn’t alert the teaching staff. 

“Sakir’s instinct was not to run away — it was to protect his classmates,” according to a GoFundMe set up for Everett and his family. “…preventing what could have been an unimaginable tragedy.”

Everett, a seventh grader at the Dwight Rich School of the Arts, was accused of weapons possession and expelled from school.

“They kicked him out of school for the whole year,” the boy’s mother, Savitra McClurkin, told local outlet WILX on Friday.

“He didn’t want to implicate himself in it, nor did he want to tell on the person that actually brought the firearm,” McClurkin said. “Because he knows firearms aren’t supposed to be in school.”

Everett, an A and B student, credits his hunting background for his knowledge of gun safety, which allowed him to take the gun apart so no one would get hurt.

Because of the expulsion, Everett is home all day, and his mother has had to make accommodations for him, including taking time off work to care for her son. 

“They are setting my son up for failure,” McClurkin said of the Lansing School District that decided to kick her son out of the school. “They’re setting him up to being a statistic and I’ve been doing everything in my will and my power to keep him from that.”

Sakir now takes online courses from a “non-accredited online program to keep him on track in the curriculum until his educational future is decided,” the New York Post reports. 

“Online schools are honoring [the school district’s] decision. Nor did they provide us a different resource or a different avenue to go,” McClurkin said.

“It’s devastating because he’s a bright kid and all he wants to do is be a kid,” she added. “As a parent, I feel like I may be more devastated than him.”

At a recent board meeting, McClurkin pleaded for her son’s reinstatement, “but the members didn’t respond to the angered mother,” the Post reports.

“What am I to do? He’s 11 years old, in seventh grade, never been in trouble before,” McClurkin questioned the school board during a recent meeting.

“Instead of being recognized as a hero, Sakir is now being treated like a criminal. He has been expelled and barred from all school platforms,” according to the GoFundMe page, which was organized on behalf of McClurkin.

“Because of this sudden expulsion, Sakir’s mother has had to take on the enormous challenge of educating him at home. This has forced her to cut back on work, creating serious financial strain on their household,” the fundraiser’s organizer wrote.

“Sakir acted out of bravery and love for his classmates. Let’s show him that same love now,” the GoFundMe petitioned.

The school district will decide after the school year on whether to reinstate Everett into the school. It is unclear whether the student who brought the gun to school was disciplined.