New video of the TNT Academy graduation shows more about what led up to the principal's controversial remarks, as well as a parent who defended her.
The video, obtained Wednesday by Channel 2 Action News, shows TNT founder Nancy Gordeuk telling the audience she had forgotten to introduce the valedictorian. When the teen started speaking from the podium, a man is seen walking in the front of the church where the ceremony was held Friday night.
“Sir, do you want to be arrested?” Gordeuk said. “Sit down.”
Gordeuk calls a security guard over while some in the crowd sound like they’re urging the man to continue the interruption.
“Y’all owe this man an apology, especially that goober that was coming through with his little thing,” Gordeuk said. “Where are you, you little coward? Come on back up here and let’s talk.”
As some in the audience began standing up and leaving the ceremony, Gordeuk made the remark that made national headlines.
“You people are being so rude to not listen to this speech,” Gordeuk tells the audience, according to video recordings of the ceremony posted to social media. “It was my fault that we missed it in the program. Look who’s leaving — all the black people.”
More people are seen leaving, and while still at the podium, Gordeuk apologized for her remark, the video shows.
Two people also take the podium in defense of the school’s founder.
“She’s done a lot for our children when the public school system rejected our system,” she said. “She was gravely disrespected.”
After the valedictorian finished his speech, Gordeuk took the microphone one more time, this time offering another apology.
“I apologize to any parents who are left here,” Gordeuk said. “Anybody who knows me knows I did not mean that in a racial manner. I was frustrated at that man because I wanted Hank to have the respect he needed to give his speech.”
TNT Academy, based in Stone Mountain, is private and is what’s known in school circles as a nontraditional education center. It offers classes and independent study for seventh- through 12th-graders and provides credit recovery for public school students who have failed a class at their regular school.
The school is accredited through the Georgia Accrediting Commission.
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