Georgia House member Beth Moore urges students, teachers or principals to anonymously report harmful situations in schools, which have begun to reopen as COVID-19 instances continue to increase. A Georgia principal threatened “consequences” for those sharing photographs of the school, which led Moore to create an email account for whistleblowers.
North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia, has faced a national complaint about viral images showing students shoulder to shoulder in the hallway with less than a portion of the masks. The school first suspended two students who shared the photos, then changed course and lifted the suspension. Nine students then tested positive for coronavirus, forcing the school to temporarily close a week after it reopened.
Before the closure of North Paulding High, its director, Gabe Carmona, made an announcement to students, warning, “Anything that happens on social media that is negative or without permission, photography is video is anything, there will be consequences.”
Rep. Moore tweeted on August 7 that she had created an irregularity reporting account for “students and principals for percentage of photos, videos and testimonies of harmful situations at school.”
“I will give you the unnamed policy you want if you have been threatened with ‘consequences’,” he wrote.
Moore told WGCL, a CBS Atlanta associate, who had created the account “in direct reaction to what we saw leaving North Paulding … where a student punished.”
“This is an effort to make sure that if and when Georgia schools return to face-to-face teaching, we will do it safely,” he said.
Less than a week after the account was created, Moore says he has won at least 650 complaints. The lawmaker shared several messages on Facebook, saying they came from teachers, staff and bus drivers who are “deeply concerned” by plans to reopen the 141 public schools in Gwinnett County, a suburb north of Atlanta.
Moore told WGCL that once he has earned an email, he verifies the data through the sender’s public records or requests evidence of the arrangement at the school. According to Moore, a Gwinnett instructor shown to write to the whistleblower’s account:
“I am an army veteran, a war veteran who served in Afghanistan. I made the transition to education because it was deep, fiercely, in the promise and need of public education, in the brilliance and integrity of our youth. I did not point out being a martyr; if I had wanted to die at work, I would have stayed in the army.”
And she says that a proven Gwinnett bus driving force wrote:
“The GCPS administration has informed us that by the end of August, all school bus drivers will have to send students, whether or not they have masks. We have families, young people and underlying problems. GCPS school bus drivers are over 60 years old and at their highest risk. It is unacceptable for the GCPS administration to treat school bus drivers as if we were exhausting.”
All public servants whose stories were shared “were asked not to have a name for fear of reprisals from their employer,” according to Moore.
The Gwinnett School District started “virtual schooling only” Wednesday, Moore said, “but asks for the university to come forward in person, and plans to begin spreading students’ return to campus on August 26.
Another Georgia school district that reopened last week has already called on more than 900 students and quarantined them for two weeks after dozens of COVID-19 tests tested positive. One of the best schools in the Cherokee County School District has been temporarily closed due to COVID cases, Superintendent Dr. Brian V. Hightower said in a message posted online.
According to the district, once a positive case is confirmed, the contact search is carried out, the parents of the students are notified and the study rooms will be cleaned very well before reopening.
Wearing a mask is a legal responsibility for Cherokee County students, however, Hightower suggested that everyone wear it.
On Friday, more than 4,500 people in Georgia died from COVID-19, according to knowledge collected through Johns Hopkins University. The state Department of Public Health reported 83 new COVID deaths and 2,674 new cases on Thursday.
The state reported its death toll on a Tuesday in one day, 136, followed by 109 deaths on Wednesday.