Atlanta teacher pens viral op-ed: 'Why White Parents Won't Choose Black Schools'

ajc.com

Credit: Stock photo contributed by Fotosearch

Credit: Stock photo contributed by Fotosearch

An Atlanta teacher recently penned an op-ed for the Huffington Post titled "Why White Parents Won't Choose Black Schools" — which has since gone viral, with more than 13,700 Facebook shares.

"This summer, when I told the other moms at the pool where my kids went to school. I was repeatedly told to move them," Abby Norman wrote in the piece, published Oct. 15. "This from women who had never ever set foot in my school. They had not had contact with our deeply passionate, and very responsive principal, had not met the pre-k teachers who my daughter loves more than Santa.

"They had not toured the various science labs, or listened as their child talked incessantly about robotics. They don't know that every Tuesday Juliet comes home with a new Spanish song to sing and bothers me until I look up the colors in Spanish if I can't remember them from High school."

Norman, an Atlanta resident who runs a blog called Accidental Devotional and teaches English, according to her HuffPo bio, continued, "Juliet loves her school. Her mother, a teacher at a suburban school, and her father, a PhD candidate at the state university, both find the school completely acceptable, more than acceptable. We love it too."

"When I am able to move past the anger, the frustration that people are talking about a school they know nothing about, I listen to what they say," Norman wrote. "Behind all the test score talk, the opportunity mumbo jumbo that people lead with, I feel like what is actually being said, and what is never being said is this: That school is too black."

Norman does not identify the school her children attend.

There is a LinkedIn profile with Norman's name, with a similar photo, identifying Norman as a Decatur resident who teaches English at Roswell High School, which also lists an Abby Norman as one of its English teachers.

Norman has previously written about Josh Duggar and Christianity, among other topics, for HuffPo.

» Get Schooled: Discuss this issue with the AJC's Maureen Downey

» Read Norman's complete piece here