Student Suspended For Taking Popular Photograph
Two Georgia high school students have been suspended after posting photos of crowded hallways from the first days of their new school year. North Paulding High School returned to full capacity despite both the national coronavirus pandemic and local ongoing outbreaks. The students each received weeklong, out-of-school suspensions for photographs similar to the following:
This is the first day of school in Paulding County, Georgia. pic.twitter.com/fzdidaAABM
— 🇯🇲Blackđź‡đź‡ąAziz🇳🇬aNANsi🇹🇹 (@Freeyourmindkid) August 4, 2020
The school suspended both students claiming that the students had violated relevant rules about phone use at school, social media use, and posting photos of minors without consent. The school also threatened any other students who posted similar images. The audio at that link makes clear that the issue is any effort to expose the school’s total inability to substantively manage the threat:
“Anything that’s going on social media that’s negative or alike without permission, photography, that’s video of anything, there will be consequences.”
That threat makes it clear that the school suspended both students because the reaction to these photographs was one of horror, given the degree to which what this photograph captures is the opposite of an effective attempt to substantively address coronavirus.
The school has come under intense criticism after it and the county’s administration announced that there was no way to enforce a mask mandate in the school and that masking was a personal choice that the school could not dictate.
Despite recommendations from CDC health officials, the district has called mask-wearing a “personal choice” and said that social distancing “will not be possible to enforce” in “most cases.” While the school provided teachers with face shields and masks, and encouraged staff and students to wear them, they are not required and not all teachers have chosen to use them.
Brian Otott, Paulding’s Superintendent, sent a letter to parents insisting that the photo was being taken out of context, while also admitting that it did look bad. But it is not clear what context was missing from a photo showing unmasked students crammed together in a hallway. Otott also insisted that the school cannot mandate masks and insists that masking is a personal choice.
The school does have a dress code. It includes guidance on the types of pants, skirts, shirts, and shoes that can and cannot be worn.
The school has offered no explanation as to why it can tell students what to wear to school, but not tell them to wear masks. But the dress code’s existence, much like the announced threat, suggest the school’s power appears to be very situational.
Meanwhile, in the most predictable rejoinder imaginable, the school’s football team is having a coronavirus outbreak after resuming workouts.
Hmm, the US is really keen on playing the USSR in Chernobyl, isn’t it?Report
At least in the Red parts, yes it is.Report
Georgia, like most southern states, is overloaded with white people who have decided that masks and lockdowns are the hills of freedom they want to die on. The superintendent likely 1) believes the horsesh!t that its a personal choice and not a societal obligation; 2)has been told by his lawyers (and maybe even some parents) that the “violation” of rules on photos will cost his district money; and 3)is more scared of not appearing “in control” then he is of the pandemic. The dress code crosswalk is probably not on his radar, and I’m guessing the district has not yet been sued by a black student or 10 whose lives were upended by that same dress code – thus its probably laxly enforced.
Its a sad stupid small hill to die on. But lots of Districts in the south will die on it, as will their teachers and students.Report
Remember, we’re not racist, but also no combs, rakes, curlers, or picks in the hair.
It’s weird how hairpins and scrunchies are allowed to be worn in hair. Hairbands aren’t listed either, so who knows if that’s what they mean by ‘headbands’. It’s almost as if they have hyper-focused on black hairstyles. (And curlers for some reason. Not sure anyone’s really walking around with curlers?)
In case people don’t know, dresscodes are often incredibly racist, not just in the wording, but more in the enforcement.
And just as sexist. They’ve managed to at least remove all gender _language_ from theirs, unlike what my high school had, but…it’s just as gendered in the enforcement.
Hence all the use of ‘appropriate’ in there, which allow them to police teenager bodies however they want.
Anyway, schools assert really broad powers, including restricting first amendment rights. The fact they are not enforcing masks is not because any power problem, but because school administrators are often basically fascists that have been given their powers by external forces, namely the school board, so desperately suck up to them. And I bet the school board has morons on it…they usually do.Report
Well, you have to understand, the founding fathers could not have foreseen cellphones that could take pictures when they wrote the First Amendment.Report
Schools can tell kids not to bring their phones to school at all, or to leave them in their lockers, or at the principal’s office, without violating the First Amendment. Such a policy, consistently enforced, would keep students from taking pictures entirely, but wouldn’t violate the First Amendment. Disciplining students inconsistently, based on whether the pictures make the school look bad, is another matter.Report
I suppose the wording is very important, then.
Were they punished for taking the photo or were they punished for publishing it?Report
There’s probably some lawyer working on that as we speak.Report
The announcement/threat made it clear that the issue was the negative response to the photo.Report
Ah punished for doing nothing more than documenting reality. Sounds about right.Report
Seattle schools just released their plan for the coming school year, and it was basically “A normal school day, except at home, on a Zoom call”.
The school board told them that is not a plan and to try again.
Not to harp on Seattle, but our school district did the same thing, and that is basically what all the parents said.Report
The big issue here is that something needs to give and no one wants to give. In this case, employers need to take it on the chin probably and expect a bit less productivity from parents for a year or two. This will not happen though.Report
If that was it, it wouldn’t be an issue.
It’s the fact that even in the affluent district I live in, there are a lot of single parent homes, or dual income families where the childcare school provides is relied upon, and one or both parents can not work from home. Which means when school starts, if the kids are at home, somebody is out of work.Report
This. Plus many many areas have little to no internet penetration/service, much less available technology platforms for children to learn on. Here in Mississippi the state schools superintendent (highest paid in the nation FWIW) just yesterday announced that schools in the state would be using CARES Act funds to buy more tablets and Chromebooks for schools and families who don’t have them. But that will take months. and without broadband available to the students, the chromebooks won’t do much good.Report
If were are going to act like education at home via high-speed internet is something the government can do to fulfill its obligation to educate people, we have now implicitly included high-speed internet as some sort of right.
Sorta like other civilized countries have explicitly had for years.
A reminder: ISPs can currently refuse to service people for basically any reason, and are almost always monopolies, or at least duopolies. They’re even trying to argue out of being common _carriers_, which at least requires them to treat all communications the same.
See, this is why one of the best thing I think a billionaire could do is start blatantly absurdly abusing corporate power like this. Like, buy an ISP, and then block students from accessing their school. ‘Hey, it’s legal for us to do that!’ And then , if they fix that, start canceling the service of people who have kids. ‘Hey, we can still legally do this!’Report
I’ve made the same point about dress codes, but on reflection I think a better analogy would be wearing eye protection when using the lathe in wood shop. IIRC, that wasn’t a matter of personal choice.Report
Well, aside from Covid, one of the best reasons to keep schools suspended is to slow the spread of Marxism.Report
Have to laugh.Report
You need some new material.Report