COLORADO SPRINGS—Parents and community leaders charged that a Colorado Springs school district has ignored complaints about racial prejudice creating an unsafe environment for minority students.
About 30 people led by the Rev. Promise Lee held a news conference at the Falcon School District 49 headquarters Friday to demand better efforts to combat discrimination such as racist taunts in the district’s schools.
Lee, who is black and has three children in the district, said officials have “turned a deaf ear to racism.”
Superintendent Nancy Wright acknowledged that the claims are valid and outlined efforts to improve. “We recognize that there are issues across the school district as well as in the community,” she told The Gazette in Colorado Springs.
Wright said she would review a written complaint the group submitted, but she couldn’t discuss specifics Friday.
Lee and other leaders sent letters to the Falcon school board listing several incidents of alleged racist behavior, including a black teacher at Horizon Middle School who was repeatedly called “that colored teacher” by students and staff and four black students who were targets of a racial epithet and received counseling.
The complaint said the district took no action against students or staff who used terms.
Rosemary Harris, president of the Colorado Springs branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said unchecked racism could lead to violence.
“There is a school safety issue here,” she said. “I don’t think the district was prepared for the diversity that we see today.”
The group of parents and leaders are asking the district’s board to make a statement of no tolerance for racism, adopt anti-racism policies, provide diversity training for students and staff members, and form a minority advisory council for future problems.
Superintendent Wright said the district is working on a anit-discrimination policy due to the school board in April. She said the district is working to tell staff and others about its internal process for resolving disputes and that such conflicts can also be resolved through the state Division of Civil Rights.
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