• By CHARLES LUSSIER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Apr 10, 2009 - Page: 1A

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A Crestworth Middle School student earlier this month posted a video on YouTube of an unruly class she captured on camera, prompting the school to discipline her and six other students as well as the teacher.

A person going by the user name Kekekaila posted three videos in the past couple of weeks, though only one, labeled “CRESTWORTH 4HOUR,” sparked controversy. The six-minute video showed a classroom at the middle school where almost no instruction is evident.

Although “CRESTWORTH 4HOUR” depicts no fighting or violence, the video shows students acting up for the camera, saying profanities and making profane gestures while a teacher makes little or no effort to stop their behavior.

YouTube pulled all three videos Wednesday, the day the school’s principal, Shonel Branch-LeDuff, says she saw it for the first time. Branch-LeDuff said she was alerted the previous evening of the video’s existence.

“I was very disappointed at the type of language the students exhibited while being videotaped,” Branch-LeDuff said.

Branch-LeDuff said she also was not happy with the teacher, whom she said should have called her office right away to put a stop to the disruption.

Seven students and the teacher, none of whom the school would identify, have been disciplined, though Branch-LeDuff would not describe the punishment.

The principal and East Baton Rouge Parish school system’s Human Resources staff interviewed the teacher Thursday afternoon.

Chris Trahan, spokesman for the school system, said the teacher claimed the video was not part of a class project — something indicated at one point by the video’s student narrator. The teacher also claimed she tried to stop the filming and the video is misleading because many students not shown were behaving appropriately, Trahan said.

Branch-LeDuff said the student who took the video did not use a school camera and the student claimed to have lost the camera.

The principal said actions in the video were atypical for the middle school and even for the teacher depicted. Branch-LeDuff noted that another YouTube video, posted by Kekekaila on the same day, showed a physical education class from early last week that occurred without incident.

“This is not something that occurs (here),” Branch-LeDuff said. “This is not something practiced in the classroom.”

Branch-LeDuff said she asked the student, whom she did not identify, to have YouTube remove the video because she had failed to get permission from the parents of the students in the class. The principal said children don’t realize the consequences of posting such things on a site like YouTube.