Kayla Echevvaria is the seventh grader behind the recording. Kayla and her mother believe she was being singled out when she was suspended because making the fight public was embarrassing for the school.
Now they also understand that school policy warrants trouble even for those not physically involved in a fight.
"There was people crowding all around me because I was already recording because I wanted to catch everything," Echevvaria said.
Echevvaria said the girls were friends at one point, and the incident escalated over a boy.
The girl who initiated the fight asked Echeverria to record it, and Echeverria eventually posted the video to Youtube.
Now both girls have been suspended, and Echevvaria and her mother are questioning why.
"I tried to explain to her there were more people than just me recording the fight and taking pictures, but she basically said it didn't matter because mine was the only one that made it to the news," said Echevvaria.
"It took almost 40 seconds for any adults to get involved to split these girls up. I know what my daughter did was wrong. She didn't use the best of judgment and it is a bit instigating. But at the end of the day, what you really find out is there's a huge lack of concern. There's nobody to split these people up when they go at it like this all the time," mother Jamie Long said.
Eventually a pregnant coach and a student split the girls up, and a school resource officer was injured when he tripped on his way to break it up.
Cumberland County Schools note that recording unauthorized student images by cell phone or any other recorder is disruptive and categorize it as a class two violation. Other area systems classify it as bullying.
Echeverria and another student have been suspended for the remainder of the school year. She says she has learned a lesson.
"I probably shouldn't get involved in that kind of thing," she said.
Cumberland County Schools recently put on a workshop for parents about this very issue. They say it can help parents talk with students and understand how electronic policies work in the school system, and how to avoid landing in trouble in situations like what happened at Hope Mills Middle School.
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