overriding platon function render_group_state

dpm
I've been trying to override the function platon_render_group_state but I'm still not getting it. I can't use the same function name, so I tried with my subtheme name, but it does not work. I tried extracting that part to a tpl file and still nothing. I'm new to drupal so I'm certainly doing something wrong but looking at the documentation did not help. What is the proper way to override that function? What I'm trying to do is to edit the course details page to display the content of the course/class (so lessons or individual courses etc.) in a panel under the description with a different structure, maybe add some details too like length of the videos and more. I figured the easiest way to get the basic information would be by altering the existing code, but if someone has a better suggestion, I'm all ears.