Student suspended for filming fight

JACKSON, Tenn. — After a student posted a video of a fight at a local school, her mother says she was suspended longer than those who were fighting.

Baily Yelverton, a mom of a student at West Bemis Middle School, informed us that a fight broke out in a classroom a couple of days ago.

Yelverton’s daughter then pulled out her phone and recorded the fight and later posted it on one of her social media accounts. Someone told the administrators at the school about the post and Yelverton’s daughter was then suspended for five days.

“On March 10, there was a fight at school in one of the classrooms and she decided to pull out her phone and record it. And Alyiah decided to post it on Snapchat. And when she went back to school yesterday after spring break, the principal called her and one of the students had tattled on her and said, ‘Hey, you know she posted it on Snapchat.’ They didn’t have any proof of it. Just one of the students words. And she got suspended for five days,” Yelverton said.

We reached out to the Jackson-Madison County School System to see if they had any policies regarding the use of cell phones in classrooms. And they sent us back this policy saying that students are allowed to possess personal communication devices as long as the devices are turned off and placed in their backpacks or purses during school times.

It also says that a student in violation of this policy is subject to disciplinary action. However, it does not say the amount of disciplinary action that will be taken.

“They just said that it was up to the principal’s discretion. That they don’t really have a written policy on it. I told them that five days is a little excessive,” Yelverton said.

Yelverton said that she is mainly confused why her daughter was suspended for so long.

She says she reached out to one of the moms whose student was involved in the fight and that mom said that her son was only suspended for three days for being involved in the fight.

We reached out to the school system to see if they had a comment on why the decision to suspend Yelverton’s daughter was so long. They said they did not have a comment because they did not have all of the information concerning the situation at this time.

From our research, there is no specific policy in place regarding the filming and posting of these types of videos.

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