Faculty officers at a Kansas highschool are underneath hearth from mother and father and college students who declare a number of racial harassment incidents over the college yr weren’t taken severely by directors.
Kirubel Solomon, a sophomore at Olathe South Excessive Faculty in Olathe, Kansas, went public together with his claims towards his principal and different college officers he says haven’t performed sufficient to guard the Black college students, and this week dozens of supporters demonstrated on his behalf.
Solomon mentioned that on Could 4 he was given a flat piece of copper with the N-word engraved in it by three white college students in his steel and jewelry-making class, based on Kansas Metropolis Star. He additionally mentioned those self same three white college students have focused and harassed him for months within the suburban Kanas Metropolis, Kansas, college.
Solomon mentioned that he reported the incident to the principal Dale Longenecker together with the earlier months of racial slurs and harassment. He mentioned Longenecker solely apologized and mentioned that the habits had no place at Olathe. He was then prompted to fill out an incident type with the vice principal.
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The vice principal suspended two of the white college students concerned from college for 10 days, Solomon says. The opposite scholar reportedly additionally obtained a couple of days of out-of-school suspension and has returned to class. The incident sparked neighborhood members to rally on his behalf after his story went public.
“I really feel prefer it was weak,” Solomon informed Kansas Metropolis Star on Friday. “As a result of the college punishes tougher for lesser offenses in my view. Like vaping. They take vaping extra severely than racism in my view.”
Solomon additionally talked about that he hasn’t returned again to the store class and has stayed within the workplace as a result of he must stay at school together with his harassers as soon as they return from suspension.
He additionally wasn’t the one scholar that has confronted racial points and had nothing performed. Solomon’s sophomore classmate Jamya Haynes informed the Kansas Metropolis Star on the protest {that a} classmate referred to as her a racial slur a couple of weeks in the past. She says reported it to her instructor, however she mentioned he didn’t imagine her at first.
“They despatched our solely Black workers member down to speak to me about it. And I don’t even know what occurred. I don’t suppose (the scholar) obtained a punishment as a result of he was again at school the following day,” mentioned Haynes to Kansas Metropolis Star. “However on the college, it’s a normalized factor. It’s anticipated.”
About 50 mother and father, college students, and neighborhood members gathered on the college district’s headquarters on Monday night to demand change in management. They reportedly shouted “No justice, no college” and “Black college students matter” whereas holding indicators.
The scholars made an inventory of calls for that included the firing of Olathe South Excessive Faculty Principal Dale Longenecker for a failure to correctly deal with racism inside the college. Their calls for additionally needed the district to provoke an investigation into its personal practices for addressing racism, name for brand spanking new disciplinary measures towards racial discrimination and hate speech which have clear penalties, and a course of of teaching individuals on the affect of their racist habits.
As well as, they’re pushing for extra various hirings, stronger variety applications and coaching, a system that college students would really feel extra comfy reporting racial incidents, and a stronger collaboration with college students in addition to the neighborhood to deal with racial inequities, based on Kansas Metropolis Star.
Superintendent Brent Yeager despatched out an e-mail on Monday to make sure that the district has taken a number of steps towards enhancing fairness and inclusivity. He highlighted how the district began a variety and engagement advisory council in 2020 that has fashioned a number of workers affinity teams and helped push for higher recruitment efforts to diversify the workers.
The district additionally reportedly employed an outdoor firm to conduct an fairness audit. He additionally mentioned that the district started engaged on an replace to its code of conduct that may give “extra profound penalties for acts of racism, hate speech and racial slurs.”
Longenecker additionally despatched out an e-mail to the mother and father at Olathe South Excessive Faculty that reiterated district insurance policies and mentioned he couldn’t give any particulars in regards to the incident as a consequence of a pending investigation however mentioned it concerned a scholar utilizing a racial slur in the direction of one other scholar.
The scholars and oldsters mentioned that they haven’t seen any actual change and that the steps taken weren’t sufficient.
“It doesn’t even look like it impacts the college. It’s similar to, ‘let’s ship out an e-mail, push it underneath the rug, college is sort of out and subsequent yr we’ll transfer on,’” Haynes mentioned to Kansas Metropolis Star. “My greatest worry is we’ll simply overlook about it subsequent yr, and we’ll be out right here in one other six months as a result of one thing else will occur to a different child.”
