Suspension Lifted of Georgia Student Who Posted Photos of Crowded Hall

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The widely circulated photo from North Paulding High School in Dallas, Ga., showed students crowded into a packed hallway on their first day back to classes since the coronavirus outbreak shuttered schools in the spring.

Few were wearing masks, and there was little sign of social distancing. Then on Day 2, there was another. The photos, which were shared on social media and cited in news reports, have quickly come to symbolize a chaotic first week back in U.S. classrooms.

Schools in states where students have returned, including Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Indiana, have had to initiate quarantines and in some cases shut down classrooms and entire schools temporarily after positive cases emerged.

A 15-year-old student at North Paulding, Hannah Watters, was initially suspended for five days for posting images of the crowded hallways on Twitter, according to her mother, Lynne Watters, who said she filed a grievance with the school on Thursday.

By Friday, Hannah said, her suspension had been lifted and wiped from her record, with the school’s principal calling her mother to tell her that she could return to class Monday.

Although she agreed that she had breached the school’s policy, which prohibits filming students and posting their images to social media without their consent, Hannah said in an interview that she did not regret doing so as the images had shed light on the crowding and lack of social distancing in her school. “My mom has always told me that she won’t get mad at us if we get in trouble as long as it’s ‘good trouble,’” Hannah said, invoking the famous phrase of Representative John Lewis, the civil rights leader who was laid to rest in Atlanta last week. “You’re bettering society and bettering the world, so those consequences don’t outweigh the end result.”

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