Jonesboro dancers will tell their side to Tyra

For the past three weeks, Jonesboro High School dancer Exia Bryant has come home from school and told her mom all the names she’s been called: slut, ho, stripper, whore and bad girl.

“Every corner I turn, people talk about ‘the sluts of Jonesboro,’” Bryant said Tuesday after school. “We are young females and to call us sluts is really degrading.”

Bryant and the seven other students who make up the Jonesboro High School dance team will tell their story on ‘The Tyra Banks Show’’ on Thursday. The show will be taped, and it’s not known when it will be broadcast. The show, which is filmed in New York City, is paying for the trip, Bryant said.

Clayton schools spokesman Charles White said the trip is not sponsored by the school system and the school days the students miss will be counted as “unexcused absences.”

The dance team has made headlines since The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported that Clayton County school officials disbanded the team for being too provocative.

On Jan. 13, the team performed during a boys’ basketball half-time show. The girls dressed in tiny shorts, thigh-high stockings and tight shirts. They pulled boys out of the crowd and danced around as the boys sat in chairs.

After complaints from parents and teachers, the school system disbanded the team, removed the coach from the team and launched an investigation.

Bryant said a school administrator watched the dance, saw the outfits prior to the performance and signed off on everything. White earlier said an administrator only saw a portion of the dance routine and didn’t see the costumes.

Allison Bryant, Exia’s mother, said she attended the majority of the practices and did not find anything inappropriate. The mother said the boys had rehearsed with the team and knew they were not supposed to touch the girls.

“It wasn’t like they were doing lap dances,” the mother said.

Bryant said she thinks her daughter and friends have been wrongly punished.

“I think they have blown it way out of proportion,” Allison Bryant said. “As far as the outfits, I made sure she was covered. I made sure she would still be respected.”

Exia Bryant said she hopes to continue dancing at Jonesboro next year and then at college, where she will study business.

“Eight girls went out and did something we love to do and had fun,” she said. “I knew who I am before I did the dance and I know who I am now. I will keep dancing and keep my head up.”