Wrong. "He joked that it was cocaine, before telling them, 'just kidding'". To summarize that as "him describing it as cocaine" is like summarizing a movie review saying "A staggering waste of time and money" as "Staggering" for the print ads.
Are you saying he never said it was cocaine, or that his saying he was joking afterwards would change how the school should respond? How about if it was a kid at your kid's school? How many of them who have done this sort of thing really had cocaine, too? I know that the school I work at had a kid suspended for saying he'd brought heroin to school. Guess what? He really did, too. The administrators and teachers do get some live ones, FRiend. They ain't all jokers.