North Paulding Teens Suspended For Viral Images of Packed Hall

DALLAS, GA — At least two North Paulding High School students were suspended Wednesday for posting images of a crowded school hallway that went viral on Twitter.

BuzzFeed News reported Thursday that Hannah Watters, 15, received a five-day out-of-school suspension for tweeting a photo and a video.

Watters was told around noon Wednesday that she had violated the student code of conduct, according to BuzzFeed.

“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,” Watters said.

Watters posted the above photo with this 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."

School opened on Monday.

Another student who didn’t want to be identified also told BuzzFeed that they were suspended for posting pictures to Twitter.

After the images went viral, North Paulding High School superintendent Brian Otott wrote in an email to parents that the photos were taken out of context to “criticize our school reopening efforts.

“There is no question that the photo does not look good,” Otott wrote. “I can understand if your first reaction was one of concern.”

Even under Paulding’s COVID-19 protocols, Otott wrote, “class changes that look like this may happen, especially at a high school with more than 2,000 students.”

However, masks are not part of those protocols.

"Wearing a mask is a personal choice and there is no practical way to enforce a mandate to wear them," Otott wrote. "What we will do is continue to strongly encourage all students and staff to wear masks."

The next day, according to BuzzFeed, North Paulding principal Gabe Carmona announced on the intercom that any student criticizing the school on social media could be disciplined.

Watters was suspended the same day.

Even before classes started Monday, Carmona had to tell parents that some members of the football team already had tested positive for COVID-19 and had probably interacted with their children.

Watters gave BuzzFeed tallies she had made of students in her three days of classes, showing that no more than 40 percent of the them, herself included, wore masks. Watters said she wore her mask all day except for lunch.

She said she thought her punishment — normally reserved for a second-time offender — was “excessive,” but she understood that, strictly speaking, she had violated the code of conduct.

Still, she said, she took the photos to make people aware of how North Paulding was “ignorantly opening back up.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center later issued a statement on the suspensions.

“We share the outrage expressed by people across the country at these wrongful suspensions, and urge the school district to immediately reverse and remove them from the students’ records,” said Michael Tafelski, senior supervising attorney for the SPLC’s children’s rights project. “Children do not waive their constitutional rights in school, and the district abused its discretion in suspending these students.”

As of Thursday evening, Paulding County’s school system had not responded to a request for comment from BuzzFeed.

Paulding County was one of the first metro Atlanta school districts to open for in-person instruction. About 70 percent of its 30,000 students returned to classrooms Monday.

The Georgia Department of Public Health reported Thursday that 1,578 Paulding County residents had tested positive for COVID-19, ranking it 26th among Georgia’s 159 counties. The county also reported 21 deaths, none younger than 45. Those numbers are far less than in hard-hit Fulton County, where its 18,996 cases and 407 deaths rank it first in Georgia.

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• North Paulding Footballers Positive For COVID-19 As School Starts
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• Photo Of Paulding Students Packed Into Hallway Goes Viral