HISD says two students went on a vandalism spree at the “Home of the Rebels” after Saturday school, courses taken for credit recovery or detention. In the baseball field concession stand, equipment was knocked over and the food inside was destroyed. In a science lab a fire extinguisher was discharged. And in perhaps the most disturbing crime, a racial slur was written on a black female teacher’s classroom door.
“That’s just unacceptable. Especially today nowadays. I don’t like that the kids continue to use those words. It’s horrible,” Munoz said.
“I feel sorry for the parents. [They are] that might be embarrassing really,” added Kyle resident Sherry Mims.
The school district handed down the maximum punishment for the students who committed the crime. They’ll now spend the rest of the school year at an alternative campus. The 14-year-old boys are facing three felonies: burglary of a building, graffiti of a school and criminal mischief.
“They need to pay restitution for the damage that’s been done. So they need to pay for it I think,” Mims added.
“Maybe they don’t think what the consequences are going to be thereafter. What they’ve actually done to something that doesn’t belong to them,” said Hays High School alumna Beth Cecrme.
“They’re just going to go to the alternative campus, is that it for the rest of the year? So what’s that? One more week of school. Is it going to continue on into the next year?” Munoz asked.
The district says it will. The teens won’t be back at Jack Hays High School next school year, and neither will the teacher whose door was written on. She turned in a letter of resignation, effective at the end of this school year. District officials say that resignation was turned in before this incident happened.
On the same day that the students were taken into custody for the vandalism, HISD received a “No Place for Hate” designation from the Anti-Defamation League.
Burlington Schools Superintendent Jeanne Collins at a school board finance committee meetting on Tuesday
She said that she has taken the criticisms to heart, that she will push diversity and equity much harder. She apologized for not acting more quickly to combat racism in the schools.
She does not plan to step down, however.
Burlington Schools Superintendent Jeanne Collins has come under fire this spring from critics who complain she has not done enough to resolve racial problems in the schools. Some have called for her resignation. Monday, she offered her position — part confession, part plan of action — in a statement published Monday at burlingtonfreepress.com and in today’s Burlington Free Press printed edition.
Collins said she regrets not having done more to promote diversity and expects to be more assertive in attacking what she called “disparities” in the school system. Refugee and immigrant students, many who came from Africa, have staged protests at Burlington High School and complained in the Statehouse about racism and unequal treatment in the school.
“To those of you who believe action has taken too long, and particularly to students in our district who have suffered from the racism which I know continues,” Collins wrote, “ I say I am sorry.”
Her statement drew a positive response from Rabbi Joshua Chasan, of Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, who organized a private mediation session this month in an effort to reduce tensions. Chasan’s wife, Katharine, is a member of the School Board.
“Superintendent Collins provides leadership in her op-ed piece by apologizing, particularly to students, for the racism in our schools,” Chasan said in a statement at Monday night’s City Council meeting. “I’m looking for her prompt follow-up with detailed plans next week. In the meantime, I hope school commissioners will work with her to implement what I expect will be a plan to address the racism and inequity in the school district.”
Annual standardized test scores on the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) show a yawning achievement gap between high-income and low-income students in the district. English language learners have among the lowest scores, a fact that African students complain they’ve been blamed for unfairly when they see the fault as lying with the school’s approach to teaching them.
Last fall, the district’s Task Force Report on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion concluded that students of color are not being treated equally in city schools. The Task Force repeated a recommendation that Burlington parents of color have made repeatedly for at least a decade: Hire more teachers and administrators of color to reflect the increasing diversity in the district.
That report stirred a backlash from some Burlington teachers who have argued that Burlington High School is not in need of drastic change.
Sara Martinez de Osaba, director of the Vermont Multicultural Alliance for Democracy, has offered support to the immigrant students and has called for an acknowledgement in Burlington schools of racism’s toll. In the wake of the superintendent’s statement doing just that Monday, de Osaba issued her own statement.
“It is unfortunate that it has taken the community’s call for the superintendent’s resignation to finally hear acknowledgment that racism exists,” de Osaba said. “It is unfortunate that the most vulnerable students, the very African ELL (English Language Learner) students conveniently blamed for low test scores, had to organize a protest and a meeting with BFP (Burlington Free Press) staff in order to be recognized as intelligent and independent thinking young adults. It is unfortunate that years of complaints raised by parents, students and brave staff that pointed to disparate treatment were disregarded as either isolated incidents or exaggerated accounts.”
De Osaba said Collins’ statement gives her hope: “It will be good to see what that translates into.” But she also cautioned that solutions must address underlying issues.
“There are those who think that tutoring is a solution; that is someone who does not have an inkling of the deep-seated problem of racism,” she said. “Tutoring will not erase humiliation and isolation suffered by students of color at the hands of staff and other students.” In addition, the school district should examine why so many educators of color have left the school district, de Osaba said.
In her article, Collins said she plans to spend more time in the schools visiting students to hear directly about their experiences. She also said she was “moved by the students who had the courage to protest the continuing verbal abuse suffered by children of color, often by other students.”
“In the coming days, I will be announcing a series of aggressive actions to attack disparities in the school system,” she wrote.
She did not indicate what those actions will be.
“It is not my intention to step down,” Collins wrote. “We will create an environment where all students, regardless of race, ethnicity or class, are respected and related to with equity.”
She acknowledged the district is facing “a crisis” and vowed she would not wait till next fall to address it.
“We will not tolerate acts of racism in our schools, whether by students or staff,” she wrote. “I recently met with all the administrtors of our schools to draw a clear line with accountability for such acts.”
“We will enter next school year with plans to ensure that our staff in every school knows of my insistence on zero-tolerance of racist acts and statmenet in our schools and in the community,” she wrote.
When single father Stuart Chaifetz was told his 10-year-old autistic son was being violent in school, he knew something was wrong.
Akian had always been a gentle, loving boy, and the school’s description of him was so out of character that he sent his son to school with a hidden tape recorder to find out what was really going on.
That evening, when he listened to the six-and-a-half hours of audio, his life changed forever.
Distressing: Akian was a gentle boy until he attend the school in New Jersey where his teachers taunted and swore at him
Discovery: Akian had always been a gentle, loving boy, and the school’s description of him was so out of character that his father sent him to school with a hidden tape recorder to find out what was really going on
Not only were Akian’s teachers at Horace Mann Elementary in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, talking about being drunk at school and sex, and gossiping about pupils and their parents, they were also taunting, shouting and swearing at his son.
‘What I heard on that audio was so disgusting, vile, and just an absolute disrespect, and bullying, of my son that happened not by other children, but by his teacher, and the aides, the people that were supposed to protecting him. They were literally making my son’s life a living hell,’ Chaifetz said.
He incorporated the troubling recording into a 17-minute YouTube clip, in which he demands a public apology from the teachers who treated his son as if he was ‘subhuman’.
Chaifetz told how Akian, who suffers from learning difficulties, sometimes talks softly to himself. But when he is heard doing this at school, the disturbing audio documents his teacher mocking him and yelling: ‘Shut your mouth.’
Sweet: Akian’s parents are separated and he sees his mother every other weekend, which is sometimes stressful for him
Viral: Stuart Chaifetz’s YouTube video, uploaded last Friday, has been viewed almost 200,000 times, attracting 13,000 likes and 1,000 comments
Insulting: Akian, who is autistic, sometimes talks softly to himself. But when he does this at school, the disturbing audio documents his teacher mocking him and yelling: ‘Shut your mouth.’
In distress, the schoolboy begins to cry, to which his teacher responds: ‘Go ahead and scream because guess what? You are going to get nothing until your mouth is shut.’
The shocking recording details Akian’s teachers talking to him aggressively, culminating in one’s outburst of: ‘Oh Akian, you are a bastard.’
But what is perhaps the most disturbing for the father-of-one, is when Akian’s teachers deliberately upset him, causing the boy to breakdown.
‘Go ahead and scream because guess what? You are going to get nothing until your mouth is shut.’
One of Akian’s teachers
Akian’s parents are separated and he sees his mother every other weekend. But this sometimes proves distressing for the special needs boy, so a frequent question he asks is, ‘May I see Daddy after Mommy?’
But when the boy seeks reassurance from his teachers and asks the same question, they respond, laughing: ‘No, you can’t see.’
In panic, Akian reacts by throwing chairs around the classroom, his meltdown lasting for half an hour.
‘What kind of sick, twisted person does that to a 10-year-old boy?’ Chaifetz asks. ‘My son did not go to school, he went to prison and learnt to fight to survive.’
He took the audio to the Cherry Hill School District, where officials fired one of the teachers involved – but the other teacher featured in the recording is still at the school.
Out of line: Akian’s teachers at Horace Mann Elementary in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, frequently talked about being drunk at school and sex, and gossiped about pupils and their parents
‘This is a personnel matter that the school district took seriously and handled appropriately and there will be no further comment,’ Susan Bastnagel, spokesperson for the Cherry Hill School District, told NBC10.
But Chaifetz does not agree. ‘What you did was so disgusting that you should be walking around with your head in shame… And you’re still teaching children today,’ he said.
TRANSCRIPT
Teacher: Who are you talking to, nobody? … Knock it off. Akian: (crying)
… Akian: May I see Dad after Mom? Teacher: No. Akian: (crying)
… Teacher: What did you do in the library yesterday? Akian: Looked at the sculpture. Teacher: You looked at the sculpture, that’s what you did? You didn’t look at books? You couldn’t see any books in the library or you just looked at sculptures? Akian: (inaudible, crying) Teacher: Oh Akian, you are a bastard.
‘I want an apology not for me, but so one day, I can play this video back for my son and say, “Akian, you did not deserve anything that happened to you. These people are at fault”… This is to reclaim my son’s dignity.’
The outraged father’s YouTube video, uploaded last Friday, has been viewed close to 200,000 times and has attracted almost 14,000 likes and 1,000 comments.
Internet users reacted with horror and the upsetting clip, with one user, named frickchicka786, posting: ‘It wasn’t until she called your son a bastard that I realized how really, truly vicious this woman is. There is a fine line between discipline and humiliation and she skirted it for the first few clips and then blatantly crossed with the name calling. I could hear the resentment in her voice.
‘How could she make fun of these kids–special needs children are the sweetest! I’m sorry your son hurt so much. I hope this reaches the world and you get the change that your son deserves.’
Another, posting under the name shmaderable, added: ‘This seriously sickens me. It’s hard to believe that people would treat a child like that, much less a child with autism.
‘You are an absolutely WONDERFUL father! I hope those evil women get what they deserve and I hope for the best for you and your son from here on out.’
CASE STUDY: JOSE SALINAS’ MOTHER BUGGED HIS WHEELCHAIR
Melisha Salinas knew her 10-year-old son Jose Salinas, who has cerebral palsy, was not happy at Wicksburg High School, Alabama, as he often came home upset.
An explanation came when one of his classmates told Salinas that the teacher’s aide had been mean to Jose three times that day.
Determined to be sure of what was happening, she attached a bugging device to Jose’s wheelchair and left it recording over three days.
The recording revealed that her son was being cruelly taunted about his disability and ignored for the majority of the day with no-one giving him instruction.
‘You drooled on the paper,’ a male’s voice, allegedly that of teacher’s aide Drew Faircloth, can be heard saying. ‘That’s disgusting.’
‘Keep your mouth closed and don’t drool on my paper,’ a woman’s voice identified as Alicia Brown is heard saying. ‘I do not want to touch your drool. Do you understand that? Obviously, you don’t.’
After listening to the tapes, which the nursing student said ‘broke her heart’, Salinas immediately pulled her son out of the school.
Protective mom: Melisha Salinas bugged her son’s wheelchair to find out if his school teachers were bullying him
