Six Honokaa High School varsity football players have been kicked off the team for posting a derogatory photo on social media regarding their rivals, according to school administrators.
Six Honokaa High School varsity football players have been kicked off the team for posting a derogatory photo on social media regarding their rivals, according to school administrators.
Honokaa Interim Principal Rachelle Matsumura said Wednesday administrators consider the photo an instance of cyberbullying, despite the fact the intended target of the posting was not entirely clear.
On Friday, shortly before their game against the Konawaena Wildcats, five of the Honokaa Dragons players posed in the Konawaena locker room wearing their uniforms and holding up middle fingers toward a sixth player who snapped the picture. The photo later was posted on Instagram with the caption “Win or lose f—- the zoo crew.”
The team went on to lose to Konawaena, 50-6.
Matsumura said she later learned about the post from a secretary with the Big Island Interscholastic Federation and from Konawaena Principal Shawn Suzuki.
Upon looking at the photo, administrators said they interpreted the post as an act of bullying/cyberbullying, Matsumura said, with the insults being directed at Konawaena.
“We took it as derogatory of the other team,” she said, while admitting that she did not fully understand the reference to “the zoo crew.”
“It didn’t say exactly what it meant,” she said. “We took it as calling them (the Konawaena team) animals in a zoo.”
At a meeting Monday with athletic director Keith Tolentino and coach Hana Hanohano, the students were informed they were being taken off the team, Matsumura said.
“They’re still in school, but they’re done with the team,” she said.
In a letter sent home Monday afternoon to the parents of the football players, the principal explained that the school system has a “zero tolerance policy for bullying and cyberbullying.”
“Since the event took place on school grounds, it is within the school’s right and jurisdiction to ensure that the students who were involved have appropriate consequences,” the letter stated.
The students will be required to write a two-page paper on cyberbullying and bullying. If the students do not submit the paper by Oct. 19, they will receive a two-day suspension, the letter said.
Matsumura said Wednesday students on the junior varsity team will fill empty positions on the varsity team in Friday’s BIIF semifinal game, in which the Dragons again will face off against Konawaena.
In a Facebook message sent to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald on Wednesday, parent Maehkyne Mason said she felt dropping her son from the team was too severe a punishment.
“I don’t think the school should have gone that far to kick them off the team!!” she wrote. “Especially if they didn’t post it!”
She did not respond to attempts to contact her for more information.
In her message, Mason included a screenshot of a Facebook post from an unidentified parent in response to the school’s reaction to the Instagram post.
“If you ask me it’s RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!” the posting reads. “I understand it might be a form of poor sportsmanship!! But, it’s the last game of the season and they are seniors!! Every player talks crap to get all HYPED!!! The school is getting a call first thing in the morning!!!”
The school did not release any of their names, including the sixth student who took the photo. Attempts to identify that student were unsuccessful.
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The Hawaii Department of Education defines cyberbullying as:
Electronically transmitted acts, i.e., Internet, cellphone, personal digital assistance (PDA), or wireless hand-held device that a student has exhibited toward another student or employee of the department which causes mental or physical harm to the other student(s) or school personnel and is sufficiently severe, persistent or pervasive that it creates an intimidating, threatening or abusive educational environment:
(1) On campus or other department of education premises, on department of education transportation, or during a department of education sponsored activity or event on or off school property;
(2) Through a department of education data system without department of education authorized communication; or
(3) Through an off-campus computer network that is sufficiently severe, persistent or pervasive that it creates an intimidating, threatening, or abusive educational environment for the other student or school personnel, or both.
In evaluating whether conduct constitutes harassment, intimidation or bullying, special attention should be paid to the words chosen or the actions, taken, whether the conduct occurred in front of others or was communicated to others, how the perpetrator interacted with the victim, and the motivation, either admitted or appropriately inferred. Electronic transmissions include but are not limited to the use of data, computer software that is accessed through a computer, a computer network system, other computerized systems, cellular phones or other similar electronic devices that display e-mail, text messaging, blogs, photos, drawings, video clips, online community websites, or faxes, or a combination of the foregoing.
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.