From http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/10/30/students-walk-out-for-fired-deputy.html:

“Hundreds of students walked out of Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina on Friday morning in support of the deputy sheriff who was fired after violently arresting a black student. Students reportedly chanted “Free Fields” in support of Ben Fields, a school resource officer and football coach who was caught on tape forcibly removing a black student from her desk, allegedly because she was disrupting class. The students walked into the school atrium and then returned to class after administrators addressed them.”

Eduhonesty: Our students know who is on their side. They know when someone is trying to help them. They also know when someone is hurting them. That girl who refused to give up her cell phone hurt every student in that class — and I’m sure almost all or all of them realize this fact.

I find the words “allegedly because she was disrupting class” to be offensive. No “allegedly” exists here. When you repeatedly ignore a teacher’s instructions, then an administrator’s, and then a cop’s, you have successfully disrupted the class. She knew she had done this. She was probably enjoying herself, too.

I hope she’s not still enjoying herself, but I wouldn’t be too sure that she’s not. She caused the chaos she intended. She got the attention she wanted.

Eduhonesty: A thought based on some feedback I received to my Raven-Symone post: The actual process of managing that cell phone may have taken closer to a full half-hour rather than eight minutes. First the teacher tried to manage the phone, making multiple requests asking the girl to put the phone away. Then an administrator was called in and tackled the issue without success. Then the school decided the cops were needed. That exchange added more time, spawning the viral videos across the internet. If a full half-hour was taken up by this issue, assuming 25 classmates, that totals 12.5 hours of lost learning time — more like the equivalent of two full school days total. The average class period runs a little less than an hour, so that phone problem maybe took up 1/10 of the total time available for that class for the whole week.