By Sydney Shrewsbury
Ceniad
East Lansing HS
When Caleb Caballero (10) was called down to the office in late February, he had no idea he would be suspended for three days because of something he posted on Twitter.
As the new season of flockey was starting up, so were team tensions. Flockey players turned to Twitter and began teasing other teams about who would win hats. However, this friendly banter soon took a turn.
“At first the posts were harmless, and I think everyone found them funny, but then they started to get more and more offensive,” Madison Miller (10) said.
As the Twitter scandal progressed, some of the posts became sexually explicit and also targeted certain racial groups. And when the school administration found the accounts, they suspended three people, one of whom was Caballero, who plays for The Herd.
“I understand why we’re being punished because there were some posts that were totally out of pocket, but people were only posting things about people they knew personally,” Caballero said, “I’ve never been suspended before, so it surprised me when I got suspended for three days for something I posted that had no malintent behind it.”
At first, the school prohibited three teams from playing for three weeks, and then that number reached five as more and more flockey team’s Twitter accounts were exposed. John Hanley (11), a player for the Gym Reapers, one of the first teams to be suspended, agreed with the administration’s decision.
“The entire reason why we were all mad was because not everyone deserved the same punishment,” Hanley said. “Some teams posted worse things than other teams, but I understand why they are punishing us.”
In order to play before their ban was lifted, the school administration had the teams delete their accounts and made them write a two page paper on why they thought what they did was inappropriate
“I don’t think any of us will do this again because the school loves flockey too much to not play,” Caballero said.
1st Place
Division 2, Yearbook Verbal
Y-01. Feature Writing – Student Life
Feature writing and reporting on school and community from the student life section of the book. An individual story may not be submitted in more than one writing category. Submit a PDF of the page(s) showing the entry. CLEARLY INDICATE WHICH STORY YOU WISH JUDGED in the Additional Information field if there are multiple stories on the page.
JUDGING CRITERIA
- Clear, relevant, engaging angle
- Solid lead that draws reader into story
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