A DeKalb County high school principal has been removed after he was accused of making racially-charged comments to school staff.
Someone reportedly mounted fliers throughout Lakeside High School that alleged the principal told janitors and security staff at a meeting: “You don’t want to mess with me. I’m a redneck master with a degree. I run these 40 acres!”
School district Superintendent Steve Green issued a statement Wednesday, saying there was an investigation into the allegations, and the principal had been removed from the school. Green said any violations of policy or law would be prosecuted.
The principal, Jason Clyne, who is white, could not be reached for comment. Typically, in these situations, officials remain on the payroll and work in a different location until an investigation is completed. DeKalb did not identify who would run Lakeside in Clyne’s absence.
The flier appeared on Twitter Tuesday.
The allegation of racism contradicts parent Yin Li’s experience. She’s talked with Clyne while volunteering at the school and had a long conversation with him in the bleachers at a swim meet — both of their sons compete — in early January.
“He’s really super nice to students. My son, his school friends, all like him,” said Li, who is of Chinese descent. She said Clyne doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty. During a recent summer, she spotted him driving a lawn mower, shaded by a cowboy hat, on the school grounds.
Li and others described Clyne as a large man, middle aged, who speaks his mind. Lee Ann Ramsey, another parent, said he tries, maybe too hard, to be everybody’s friend.
“I have no idea what his core values are. I do think sometimes he has a sense of humor that can be misinterpreted,” said Ramsey, whose son is a freshman at the school and whose daughter recently graduated. “It, unfortunately, can be off-putting, but I don’t think it’s coming from a bad place. It’s just something he’s grown comfortable with.”
Lakeside is a diverse school. Whites comprise about a third of the more than 2,100 students. The Hispanic population is almost as large and blacks make up about a quarter of enrollment.
Ramsey, who is white, fears the school will become known for this one incident, but said she has seen no racial tension. Her kids have come home with friends from countries she hadn’t heard of, and they have had teachers from around the world. That experience left a lasting impression on her daughter, now a freshman at the University of Georgia, who rejected one college because it was almost all white.
“We don’t want the perception to get out there that Lakeside is a school that does not value diversity,” Ramsey said.
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