City Schools of Decatur announced several steps this week it hopes will make it more racially inclusive after complaints about the district’s recent handling of a teacher who used a racial slur in front of students.
A white, male teacher used the n-word in front of a class at Decatur High School in December, according to news reports. Superintendent Maggie Fehrman said at the time that the teacher used the slur while correcting a student he heard using it. Students in the class described feeling uncomfortable by the teacher’s use of the word.
The incident sparked walkouts and protests from Decatur High students who said the district wasn’t holding the teacher involved accountable. The district then commissioned an independent evaluation of the incident and racism in the district more broadly.
Fehrman sent a five-page letter this week to parents summarizing the findings and outlining steps the district plans to take to make schools more inclusive. Among the action items were hiring additional staff to support equity initiatives, creating safe spaces for teachers, evaluating their system for reporting complaints involving race, and revising teacher evaluations to allow for more open dialogue.
“We acknowledge some critical errors were made by school and district administration,” Fehrman said in the letter. “We sincerely apologize for those errors, as well as for the length of time that it took to address this incident.”
The letter was reported earlier this week by the news site decaturish.
Decatur High School Principal Rochelle Lofstrand — who was reassigned in January — will return to the school on March 13, district officials said Tuesday.
The district has not announced what will become of the teacher involved in the incident.
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