A performance during a Nacogdoches High School pep rally last month has created some controversy between students and the administration over the appropriateness of a skit that included the executions of rivals and toy guns.
Some students say the skit was inappropriate and are circulating a petition — which currently has 122 signatures — protesting "gun promotion" at pep rallies.
Christy Wooten/The Daily Sentinel |
Drug free gun free zone signs are posted throughout Nacogdoches High School.
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Photo by Chris Shaw |
Nacogdoches High School cheerleaders participate in a mock execution of 'rivals from Center' during a skit performed at a pep rally held in September.
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Photo by Chris Shaw |
A controversial skit at Nacogdoches High School involved toy guns and a mock killing.
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However, NHS principal Nathan Chaddick contends that the skit was a "simple, innocent satire" aimed at boosting school spirit, and with the exception of one complaint from a parent, Chaddick said "everybody enjoyed it and had a good time."
Laughter from the crowd of spectators, which includes several adult voices, is prevalent throughout a video of the skit, which was performed during a Sept. 5 pep rally.
The skit opens with a few cheerleaders dressed to represent that week's opposing team, the Center High School Roughriders. Wearing cowboy hats and carrying toy pistols, the "rivals" run into the gym to take the NHS mascot hostage as the theme from the movie "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," plays in the background.
As the Center team scuffles with the mascot, NHS cheerleaders run to the rescue, freeing the mascot. They then force the Center team to kneel as they stand behind them with guns.
The music shifts to a popular song which includes the sound of gunfire. As the NHS cheerleaders hold the guns to the back of the kneeling "prisoners'" heads, gunfire is heard. The "prisoners" fall over, dead.
The victorious NHS cheerleaders then toss what appears to be fake money into the air in celebration, then drag the bodies representing Center into a pile, whereupon the NHS mascot holds up a tombstone over the executed "prisoners," to the sound of clapping and cheering from the spectators.
But not everyone found the skit enjoyable or appropriate.
Soon after, a petition "against gun promotion at pep rallies" was circulated, and an article and two editorials on the subject appeared in the student newspaper, The Dragon Echo.
The editorial defending the skit, written by an NHS cheerleader, was published in its entirety. An editorial critical of the skit, written by two students, was edited — by Chaddick — to eliminate three paragraphs that questioned the administration's support for the skit.
In addition, a news article detailing the skit as a whole was moved from the front page to the third page of the Echo, at Chaddick's direction, because he felt there were more important issues at hand.
"We just had the hurricane going on and people without power in their homes and homeless," he said. "And there's just more important things going on than a personal agenda of three little girls. I don't think three girls and one mother have the right to make this a top story for our school newspaper."
However, Mollie Garrigan, who wrote the editorial with fellow student Katie Rushing, denied that the motives were personal.
"In no way are we against cheerleaders," Mollie said. "We are against gun promotion."
Chaddick said he didn't believe that using a toy gun in a skit promoted the use of guns.
"In any school district, there's a zero tolerance regarding illegal weapons, certainly," he said. "But this was just a simple skit done by our cheerleaders just to promote some school spirit and motivate the football team at a pep rally ... they were doing like a little country, cowboy-type skit."
Although the NISD Student Code of Conduct and Student Handbook says that "using or possessing a pellet gun, air-powered rifle, toy gun, or any other instrument that may be perceived by a third party as a firearm" is a prohibited conduct, Chaddick said it didn't pertain to a toy gun used in a skit.
He compared it instead, to the use of a prop in a play.
"What do they want us to do with Shakespeare when kids have swords stabbing each other or plays with some shooting?" Chaddick asked. "It's the same thing. It's the same little skit. But because these three girls have a personal thing going on against some cheerleaders, they feel they have a right to use this venue for their personal agenda or purpose, and I'm just not going to allow that."
In addition to the title of the editorial "Fearleaders," Chaddick also eliminated the following paragraphs:
"We realize it was intended to raise school spirit, but it is inappropriate to allow such a display of excessive violence in a high school. This is not only unacceptable in a school environment, but also from a moral standpoint. This skit did not portray the other team as our opponent in a sports game, but as an enemy.
This skit and all of its implications were approved by an authoritative figure with the power and responsibility to edit the skit.
Such an authority should certainly show more discretion in the future."
When asked what he found inappropriate about the material edited from the editorial, Chaddick would say only that it was "obvious" that the comments were a personal grudge.
"They were calling the cheerleaders 'fearleaders'," he said. "That's just inappropriate."
"In a public school setting, you can't just publish anything you want to," Chaddick said. "There is going to be some censorship and some editing if there's something that's inappropriate."
"I got one parent who thinks it was so wrong that we had some plastic guns in the skit here at the schoolhouse," he said. "I let her know, you're certainly entitled to your opinion and your personal own beliefs. One person's personal agenda is not going to drive what we do here at Nacogdoches High School."
(An unabridged version of the editorial is printed as a letter to the editor in today's edition of the Daily Sentinel.)
