north paulding high school — Blog

Leave it to Kemp’s blood-red Georgia to do the best imitation of Trump world. This time, instead of a decorated, multi-lingual military officer (and his twin brother)¸ or returning your former attorney to jail because he was doing the most un-American of things – writing a book, or throwing fireballs at one of the world’s leading epidemiologists for reporting scientific and medical research, the whistle -blower predators found a teenage girl to target. God Bless America. God Bless Georgia.

Hannah Watters, a student at North Paulding High School near to Atlanta, saw the sardine can packed hallways with virtually all the students without masks. We know two things in combination to be effective in fighting the Coronavirus, wearing masks and social distancing, two heretical ideas departing from what is or was (who can keep track?) Trump doctrine, for which Dr Fauci received fifty virtual lashings for apostasy.

Hannah played Nellie Bly by photographing the school corridor and posting the image online. Making public the truth about school openings and the risks being taken cannot be tolerated by public image builders and governors trying to show the world is normal as they sacrifice the young and their Covid progeny in the academic cauldrons brewing the deadly virus as microorganism incoming and no Iron Dome to destroy them in midair. As Henry V says at Harfleur “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more or close” the halls up with our school age dead.

According to reports, Hannah was exiled for a five-day suspension covering several infractions of the rules: using a cell phone during instruction time, transmitting to social media, filming students and posting it on social media. Congratulations to North Paulding, which proved any school can unjustly pile on the charges as much as a district attorney’s office looking to get the one who knows too much.

Hannah’s version of the rules differs. The code of conduct for NPHS says 9th-12th graders are exempt from the prohibition on phone use. She also states the postings occurred after school. She does not plead innocent. In fact, she invoked the John Lewis ghost, she got into “good and necessary trouble” because of her “concern for everyone’s safety.” This may or not be true, whole or in part. The Joan of Arc self-sacrifice on the part of students who embarrass or seek punitive actions against their school or staff are not unusual. Some do so under the pretense of a righteous cause; others to push the proverbial buttons. It is, especially in the age of phone cameras, easily done and more commonly tried.

With discipline an assault victim from politically far Left fronts, social service and child workers, educational lawyers (a nice new field for the cramped lawyerin’ business), and no-consequence soft as butter alternatives they favor, emboldened children act with unfettered glee at the impotence of school authority. What happens in school doesn’t stay in school anymore. An incident in some classroom with 18 kids in a class and 300 for the entire school in a rural county can make national headlines or one of those “Next Page” chain stories on AOL.

Turning the tables on the administration or a teacher has become the national sport of our youth. Pushing the envelope from bad behavior to speech to dress, students vie for the trophy in the contact sport known as Beat Your School. A spot on GMA, social network celebrity, local attitude champ can all be had--just be a little naughty for the right reason. News media love the single combat student-warrior victimized by bully-school stories (case in point.) They level the playing field leveled as the principal plays the student called into the office for being a troublemaker. TGBL will consider this an unfiled amicus brief supporting Hannah. We all often have several motivations for our actions, an agenda. Whether altruistic or not, Hannah’s heroic reveal was epic.

The image of the school corridor belies the problem, not only of school openings but many other issues. You can have all the guidelines in the world but if they are not followed, they are worthless. Authorities in charge of enforcement must make their constituents adhere to them; it is dereliction otherwise. If people have no faith or enthusiasm for the guidelines, public health and safety demand enforcement. In conservative Georgia, under a Trumpian governor, the appearance of normalcy epitomized by the first day of classes, with bustling hallways and youthful exuberance, is a reelection image Republicans covet. When masks are optional, optional is what you get. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

Hannah’s camera made the state authorities look foolish, careless, negligent regarding the spread of Covid-19. When the image appeared in media, parents’ nightmares of the virus infecting their kids and invading their homes grew. Not what President Trump, nor the governor, ordered for a political victory.

So they did what has been customary throughout history—kill the messenger. School authority has often overreacted to disciplinary situations as a means to reset the relationships of who is in charge and who is not. The situation at North Paulding High is exactly what gives the anti-disciplinary crowd its fuel, and further eviscerates the very authority schools try to exert. NPHS punished the bearer of bad news, treating her more like Mata Hari than Hannah Watters. A five-day suspension for cell phone usage is exceedingly severe, the school equivalent of cruel and unusual punishment. A beat down by the schoolyard bully, who happens to own the school yard

Being an honor student and first time offender are factors usually taken into account when imposing disciplinary measures. In a progressive scale, which TGBL does not know if her school follows, Hannah would have received, as she told local CH11 Alive “a slap on the wrist”. Certainly, in one of today’s non-punitive, no consequence movement schools, she would have been assigned restorative justice, a seat in a circle or one-on-one session. If she caught a thief breaking into lockers or a teacher doing weed, the administration would have hailed her a hero. The image would be evidence; we’re sure no punishment issued.

The whistleblower factor manifests itself in the school’s code of conduct. While the rules prohibit cell phone use in the halls, Hannah, as a 12th grader, is exempted and allowed to use it. With Georgia’s confirmed 200,000 cases of Covid-19, Hannah embarrassed the school, the district, the governor and Trump by capturing real-world life at school in the middle of a pandemic. She posted no threats, no sexting, no blackmail, no extortion, no disrespect, no defiance or insubordination, to our knowledge based on news reports.

North Paulding backed off and nullified the suspension, so it disappears from Hannah Watters record. There was also a second student, guilty of the same charges, whose suspension was dropped. The Superintendent Otto said adjustments will be made and the Lt Governor called the early days of opening schools a “work in progress”. Also a work in Progress: How our schools balance political considerations when dealing with students and a lethal, contagious disease. In the caser of North Paulding, where masks and social distancing were not mandatory, nine students and staff tested positive. The school is now closed and undergoing a disinfectant process worthy of Bill Murray’s Carl Spackler sterilizing the pool in Caddyshack.

On July 20 Georgia had 4,689 cases of school aged children testing positive, from 1% to more than 3%, a three-fold increase since May. Nationally, the infection rate for children increased 40% since June 9, recording 97, 000 cases for the last two weeks in July. The data now says children are more vulnerable to contract and transmit Coronavirus than previously thought. The trends and numbers clearly indicated for more stringent protocols and enforcement for schools to open safely.

A red-state in the Coronavirus red-zone with a seven-year-old child dead from the virus, Georgia refused to make mandatory the vital steps necessary to stem the virus. Hannah Watters might have just saved more lives with one phone camera than all the mask-denying, politics-first state and national officials. She sought “good and necessary trouble” and willing to take the consequences for the greater good. Georgia officials, led by Gov Kemp, got into bad and unnecessary trouble for choosing politics over the safety of its children. Opprobrium hurled their way are well deserved missives.

Perhaps their embarrassing mess could serve as a warning to other states and their districts as to what to do – and not to do in this health emergency. Keeping students safe and free of the virus equals a healthy staff and community. It may be politically unpopular with certain groups who believe the Constitution guarantees the right to kill by infection, but it just seems like good and necessary trouble.