Priorities
It does not get much more Trumpy than suspending high school students not for failing to adhere to social distancing or masking practices but for taking pictures showing students not adhering to these practices:
At least two students say they have been suspended at North Paulding High School in Georgia for posting photos of crowded hallways that went viral on Twitter.
The photos show students packed into hallways between classes, not appearing to practice social distancing and with few masks visible, amid the coronavirus pandemic. They went viral after being shared by the account @Freeyourmindkid.
One of the teens who posted photos, 15-year-old Hannah Watters, told BuzzFeed News she received a five-day, out-of-school suspension for posting one photo and one video on Twitter.
She posted the above photo with the caption, “Day two at North Paulding High School. It is just as bad. We were stopped because it was jammed. We are close enough to the point where I got pushed multiple go to second block. This is not ok. Not to mention the 10% mask rate.”
Watters said she was pulled into the school’s office around noon on Wednesday and was told she had violated the student code of conduct.
“The policies I broke stated that I used my phone in the hallway without permission, used my phone for social media, and posting pictures of minors without consent,” she said.
Make sure to keep this in mind the next time a principal takes some time off from her developing the new plan to do random urine tests of the Physics club to announce that they could not possibly violate the autonomy of their students by enforcing masking requirements.
Shorts had to go past my fingertips or get sent home (unless I was wearing my dance team uniform which barely covered our butts). https://t.co/eyOsDsLKbM— Emily M. Farris (@emayfarris) August 6, 2020
UPDATE:
I’m sure the North Paulding administrators, who thought they could suppress photos by suspending students who posted them on social media, are making intelligent, well-Informed decisions about student safety.— BanALLTheAppsHat (@Popehat) August 6, 2020