CRESTVIEW — The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is considering suing the Okaloosa County School District as allegations of racial discrimination surface at Baker School.
Dale Landry, vice president of the NAACP's Florida Conference, addressed about 75 people Saturday during a town hall meeting to discuss the charges. The NAACP called the meeting after a military family said their teenage sons were subjected to racial slurs and physical intimidation. The family, who are black, also said their home was burglarized and the father was followed in a threatening manner while he was on his way home.
Several people — including two military family members whose children attended Baker — shared their stories.
A woman who is white said her biracial teenage son was subjected to racial slurs and was shown the same photo of a Ku Klux Klan member holding a noose that the boys who made the original charges said they were shown. She withdrew her younger children from the school when the oldest boy was suspended after fighting several others who attacked him. She said she went to the administration to try to solve the problem, and they told her son what to do if he was harassed.
Another man, also a military member, said his daughter, who he said never had disciplinary problems before, was suspended after she got in a fight after another student called her the N word. After the meeting, the man’s wife said their daughter is considering transferring to another school.
“I just want to stress what we’ve said before,” Superintendent Mary Beth Jackson told the Northwest Florida Daily News after the meeting. “Because of privacy issues, we aren’t able to share the district’s side to the story, because we can’t talk about what type of discipline these children or any of the students involved received.
"But we take it very seriously, and the principal at Baker has made it very clear that he is not going to tolerate this kind of racial abuse. The school district has nothing to hide.”
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Okaloosa School District responds to accusations of racial tension