NC teacher said Black students would be ‘field slaves’ without Constitution, parents say
A charter school in Eastern North Carolina is under fire after a lesson on the Constitution last month turned “racially insensitive,” officials said.
The incident occurred on Sept. 17 — Constitution Day — when parents said an eighth grade language arts teacher at Winterville Charter Academy in Greenville told Black students they’d still be working in the fields if it weren’t for the country’s founding document.
“She had them raise their hand during a constitutional lesson and reminded them that if it wasn’t for the Constitution, they would be her slaves. Her field slaves,” Kanisha Tillman, whose child was in the classroom, told WITN.
Winterville Charter has more than 670 students in grades K-8 and is owned by National Heritage Academies, a for-profit education management company in Michigan.
NHA spokesperson Leah Nixon told McClatchy News in a statement Thursday she couldn’t share specific details regarding the incident due to “student and staff privacy rights” but said the company “will not tolerate racism.”
“The school leadership team acted immediately upon learning about a racially insensitive lesson and student remarks, and is currently working to address ongoing concerns from parents that racially insensitive student remarks continue,” Nixon said in the statement.
What happened
In interviews with news outlets, parents said the Constitution lesson was one of several racist incidents involving the teacher and other students at Winterville Charter.
Tillman told the Associated Press that her son relayed a story to her in which a white student called a Black student a monkey.
“When the Black student educated him on that being racist and him not liking it and not to call him that and asked the teacher for support, the teacher turned around and said to him, ‘Oh, it’s OK. We’re all a little bit racist,’” she said, according to the AP.
Tillman said the teacher then threatened to write up the Black student after he responded by calling the white student a “cracker,” the AP reported.
Parents told WNCT white students also used racial slurs and called a Black student a “fried chicken lover.”
RayLonda Grice said she was “appalled” after learning what was being said, WNCT reported.
“I knew I was angry because I’m a parent of two Black children at this school and they weren’t affected directly but it could have been one of my kids,” she told the news outlet. “And every kid deserved to be comfortable and learn and not have to worry about whether or not their teacher dislikes them because of the color of their skin.”
How Winterville responded
Winterville Charter Principal Annastasia Ryan sent a memo to eighth grade parents on Sept. 24 that has since been shared online by a social media activist known as the “Jolly good ginger.”
“On Monday evening, it was brought to the attention of school administration that a racially insensitive lesson regarding the importance of the Constitution of the United States was carried out during an English lesson on Constitution Day,” Ryan said in the memo. “It was also reported that two racially insensitive words were used by multiple children in the classroom without appropriate redirection along with inappropriate response from the educator.”
Ryan said the school launched an investigation and the teacher, who was not publicly identified, submitted her resignation on Sept. 22.
Winterville Charter said it also plans to provide the teacher with “culturally sensitive training,” according to the memo, and more proactive training will be given to current and future staff.
The pushback on social media was swift as parents and others flooded the school’s Facebook page with concerns.
“Wack, tone deaf apology,” one person said. “I hope every POC remove their children.”
Others called it “disgusting” and a “racist school” that needs to be “shut down.”
The social media posts prompted another memo from the principal on Oct. 5, which a parent shared on Facebook.
“We value transparency as a school community. As soon as we were made aware of each incident, we immediately took action,” Ryan said. “The result was a teacher resignation and the children involved being disciplined in accordance with our Parent and Student handbook. The most recent situation of racially insensitive student remarks is currently being investigated.”
It wasn’t immediately clear which recent situation the principal was referencing, but Ryan said the school culture is built on “acceptance, love and respect” and that there is an “intentional effort to eliminate implicit and explicit bias.”
“We believe every child deserves a safe space to learn and grow, and will continue to make it our mission daily to ensure this for every Winterville student,” she said. “This includes taking the concerns of our school community seriously and acting swiftly in meaningful ways.”
