A Texas High School Student Was Suspended For Tweeting A ‘YOLO’ Doodle During STAAR Testing

Texas student Kyron Birdine was a little miffed about being made to take a test he felt was unnecessary, so he did what any modern kid would do: he Tweeted about it. And that Tweet landed him in trouble.

Birdine, a junior at Arlington High School, drew a smiley face across an essay portion of his STAAR test answer booklet along with the acronym 'YOLO' (You Only Live Once) and a short statement: "I have the TAKS test to study for, not this unneeded craziness." He then used his Apple iPad to upload a photo of his work to Twitter and sent it to the Arlington ISD and the Texas Education Agency. The stunt landed him in four days of in-school suspension, with school officials calling the picture a "breach of security".

The Arlington ISD issued a written statement to the press:

Today there was an incident with a student tweeting a picture of an answer booklet for a STAAR field test. We have made an initial report of the incident to TEA and will continue to investigate further. The student has been punished in accordance with district disciplinary procedures.

 

Birdine and his family feel the punishment may have been a bit much, especially considering that the test won't factor in to the testing standards that will determine the 3.0 GPA-carrying student's graduation plans.

"It wasn't for a grade," Birdine says. "Colleges don't see it. It didn't benefit my personal life at all." Birdine will be graduating under TAKS testing standards, not STAAR standards.

Still, Birdine is advising students to learn from his mis-Tweet and not broadcast their test time sarcasm to the world.

What do you think? Was the punishment too severe? Let us know!