With hours to spare, parents succeed in getting daughter's prom punishment overturned

SOMERSET, Mass. (WJAR) — Parents pleaded to get a prom punishment overturned and they succeeded with just hours to spare.

The parents of a senior at Somerset-Berkley Regional High School in Berkley, Massachusetts said their daughter was told Thursday she was not allowed to attend the school prom Friday night.

The parents said the punishment from the principal was over a video project highlighting the senior class year in review.

"I'm outraged. I'm mad. I'm shaking," James Hilario, the student’s step-father told NBC 10 News in an initial interview Friday at noon.

The parents had reached out to local leaders and NBC 10 in hopes of getting the punishment overturned.

"She's devastated. We're devastated," Hilario said of the punishment.

The parents said the video was to be shown at a senior class event next week.

The parents said the principal had a problem with a clip in the video of students celebrating at the Thanksgiving football rally back in November.

The parents tell NBC 10 there's been an on-going controversy at the school about that moment at the rally, when some students apparently yelled inappropriate words.

In their daughter's highlight video, there is no sound from the rally, only images.

She took the clip from a full video of the rally, which the school's TV studio still has posted online.

In the full video, no inappropriate words can be heard.

The parents said the principal was concerned, however, that images of that moment at the rally would bring the controversial issue back up and cause problems, so he told their daughter to edit that scene out of the video before it could be shown.

The parents told NBC 10 she was punished for then showing the video to friends before changing it.

"She was showing it to her friends like any other normal kid, said like, 'what's wrong with this?'," Hilario said.

The parents then urged school leaders to overturn the punishment and let her go to prom.

They also called NBC 10.

NBC 10 left messages with the principal and superintendent late Friday morning.

Not long after the initial NBC 10 interview with the parents at noon, the parents received an email from the principal saying the school committee asked him to reconsider the punishment, and their daughter could go to the prom later that evening.

"I'm just happy for her," Hilario told NBC 10 after the reversal.

He said the superintendent called them.

"Said he was sorry about the way everything played out. I think he kinda agrees that the punishment did not match the crime," Hilario said. "I'd like to think it was the voice of reason, but you know ultimately sometimes it takes a little pressure sometimes to do this."

The principal and superintendent did not return messages from NBC 10.