A Greenwood High School student was suspended for three days after posting on her Instagram page a video of a fight that had taken place at the school.
The student, Jazsareah Moore, a junior, and her mother, Aretha Moore, both said the school’s principal, Barren Cleark, had told them Jazsareah was suspended because the video depicted the school in a negative light.
The Moores were upset over the suspension and left with questions of how school officials learned of Jazsareah Moore’s reposting of the video in the first place and why school officials are monitoring students’ social media pages at all.
The video, which was posted on March 15, the day of the incident, remained on Instagram Stories for 24 hours and then was automatically deleted.
According to Jazsareah Moore, a fight between two female Greenwood High students, one of whom is Moore’s best friend, took place at the school’s gym. The two students filmed in the fight video were both suspended, the Moores said.
Jazsareah Moore said she reposted a video of that fight on the story feature of her Instagram account, which is public, around 3:40 p.m. that same day while she was at Walmart and after she was out of school.
She said she had reposted the video, which she pulled off a classmate’s social media page, in defense of her best friend, who she said was bullied for no reason by the other student.
Aretha Moore said that while she was at Walmart with her daughter, she received a phone call around 4:30 p.m. from Cleark, who informed her that her daughter would be suspended from the school from Wednesday through Friday of last week for reposting the video.
“No warning. He asked me if I was her mother, and he told me, ‘Your daughter is being suspended for reposting a fight video,’” Aretha Moore recalled. “He told me it wasn’t appropriate. It was showing the school in a negative light.”
Jazsareah Moore also spoke with Cleark over the phone and readily told him, when asked, that she had reposted the video.
Like her mother, Jazsareah Moore said she was given no warning by the principal but instead was reprimanded and suspended
“It was a straight up ‘Don’t do this; you’re suspended for three days,’” she recalled.
Jazsareah Moore asked Cleark how he found out about the video, but he skirted the questions, she said.
The Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District’s student handbook lists various reasons why students might be suspended from school, including fighting and other activities that might disrupt operations. Portraying a school in a negative light is not listed.
Jazsareah Moore said she took her suspension as a learning experience.
“I’m going to take it (as), ‘Hey, I can’t do anything outside of school or inside of school’” as far as what content she can post online, she said.
Aretha Moore said she posted a complaint about her daughter’s suspension on her own Facebook page as well as on the page of Dr. Mary Brown, the superintendent.
Otherwise, the Moores said they had not directly contacted district officials or members of the school board.
“Student safety is of the utmost importance at Greenwood High School, and we strive to limit any activity that will cause a disruption or adversely affect normal school operations,” Cleark said in an email Monday.
Brown, who was out of the office Monday, could not be reached for comment.
Samantha Milton, president of the school board, said that she was not aware of the suspension and had no comment.
- Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
