Hannah Watters is a 15 year old sophomore in Georgia at North Paulding County high school. They had their first day of classes on Monday. She told her parents that she didn't feel comfortable"because we're all jammed up in the hallways". Her parents thought she was exaggerating. The next day class she took a photo of a crowded hallway. As she told 11 Alive Atlanta "this virus is very serious obviously and we weren’t taking the right precautions to keep people from getting it at the school," she said. "So I took that picture out of concern for the county and all the kids there and all the teachers and staff."
She then posted the photo on her Twitter account which had 8 followers. 2 days later she had 1000 followers and the photo had gone viral.
On Wednesday she was summoned to the Principals office and told she had violated school policy and could be in big trouble. What policy is that? "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. We thought that I would get a slap on the wrist since it was my first offense.”
They thought wrong. Thursday Watters was given a five-day suspension. Hannah is an honor student with no other disciplinary action on her record and is asking the school to reconsider the punishment.
Also on Wednesday, principal Gabe Carmona made an intercom announcement that any student who criticizes the school on social media could face discipline.
Neither the principal, the school, or the school district have responded to multiple media requests for comment.