SMITHVILLE -- What is harmless teenage fun and what is provocative posing -- that's the debate in the Smithville School District.
Three girls were cut from the varsity squad and another was cut from junior varsity for posting on their personal MySpace pages photos the school considered inappropriate.
Both kids and parents say the punishment was far greater then the offense.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, the cheerleaders in these photos have heard them all.
"They made 'em sound a lot worse then they really were," suspended cheerleader Alexis Kitts said.
Last season the snapshots were taken in a classroom the girls were using as a changing area before the basketball game.
"The little guy was just cute and we thought take a few pictures with him," suspended cheerleader Kayla Caricofe said. "We weren't thinking anything sexual."
The little guy is a Bart Simpson cardboard cutout. Simpson's character is the bratty youngster that makes you blush but, it's the girls' behavior that made school administrators cringe.
"It was just fun," Kitts said. "We weren't thinking about it. We didn't think it would be taken that way."
The pictures were posted on the personal MySpace pages of some of the teens. Another parent in the district turned them into the school.
A disciplinary letter was sent home to the cheerleaders' parents calling the images improper.
They were suspended from the squad for one year.
"They should have taken each girl and specifically look at who they are before making this decision," Kayla's mother, Lori Caricofe, said.
Kayla's mother says the girls are hard-working honor-roll students that love to cheer.
"I see a bunch of young girls horsing around before a basketball game," Caricofe said. "That is all I see."
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