Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 7, 1993 TAG: 9303070136
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
BLACK PARENTS FEAR GROWTH OF TENSION OVER RACE AT SCHOOL
WORD OF AN INCIDENT at Franklin County High School has infuriated black parents. If the story is true, they want the school system made more sensitive to racial issues and their children. Meanwhile, a popular black teacher is leaving the school, citing racial tensions.
Few know exactly what happened, exactly what was said.
The school principal says he can't discuss it.
But Nadine Keen, an English teacher at Franklin County High School, says that early last month a white girl came to her at the beginning of fifth-period class.
The girl was upset. She and some white friends had asked another teacher, a young white woman, for passes to a Black History Month assembly.
According to Keen, the girl said the teacher expressed amazement that white girls wanted to go to a "nigger" program. Keen, who is black, said the girl told her that the teacher then lectured the girls against interracial dating.
That account has passed from black family to black family across Franklin County. They've heard reports, also unconfirmed, that the teacher was suspended for three days - with pay.
If so, that wasn't a punishment, a black father said last week. "That was a vacation."
As rumors swirl, Principal Benny Gibson says he can't do much about them because he's legally bound not to reveal information about employees.
"I would very much like to address concerns," he said, "but there is confidentiality and I honor that. I have to."
On up through the school administration ranks to Superintendent Leonard Gereau and the School Board's only black member, William Helm Jr., officials won't talk about what happened.
The Roanoke Times & World-News left a note at the high school on Friday asking the teacher to call and explain her side of the story. She has not responded.
The student who reported the Feb. 3 incident says that Gibson told her not to talk about it.
After the girl told Keen what the white teacher had said, Keen said she had the student repeat it.
"I asked her several times, `Are you absolutely sure she said the `nigger' word?' " Keen says the student confirmed it.
A few days later, Keen said, a white girl called Keen a "nigger" during a science class. Keen was not there, but she said the science teacher confirmed to her the student's use of the word. Later, though, she said he denied to administrators that he'd heard the girl say it.
"Nothing has been done to my satisfaction about it," Keen said. She said students who heard the girl's comments told her that administrators have not questioned them about it.
Gibson says the matter was thoroughly investigated. He declined - again citing confidentiality - to give details.
On Feb. 23, about 25 black parents, students and at least one teacher went to see Gibson, associate Principal George Washington and Associate Superintendent Florella Johnson. The administrators initiated the meeting, one of the parents said.
They asked about the episode between the white teacher and the female students. "It wasn't denied," said a father; but nothing was confirmed, either. The parents left unsatisfied.
"Somebody has to say this is wrong"
One night last week, 20 black adults and four students got together at an American Legion hall in Rocky Mount to talk about how black children are treated in the schools and to review what they've been able to piece together about the teacher incident.
One mother said it would be wrong to allow a teacher to use the word "nigger" because students would feel they could use it, too.
A black girl who's a junior told the gathering that teachers break up groups of black students when they gather in the halls, but they tend to leave white students alone. "You can tell there's a bias," she said.
She's in advanced classes, but she said most other black students are placed in less challenging courses. She said teachers don't seem to have much academic faith in black students or pay much attention to them. In some classes, "You feel like you're teaching yourself."
A mother said that when her son approached a teacher about getting into a special program, the teacher didn't believe at first that he'd had trigonometry and three years of a foreign language. The mother said he apparently didn't fit the teacher's stereotype, of a black low achiever.
The parents have formed a committee that may go to school administrators and demand they quash the bigotry.
"Somebody has to say this is wrong," said Linda White, a resident who joined parents in questioning recent events. She was one of the first black students to integrate Franklin County High in 1965.
Dealing with tensions
With 1,950 students, Franklin County is one of the 20 largest high schools in the state and may be the largest west of Richmond, according to Gibson, the principal. He said 14 percent of students are black, which would come to about 275. The county has a 12 percent black population.
Sixteen people, or 12 percent, of the school's 140 professional staff (teachers, librarians, counselors and administrators) are black, he said.
Walter Harper, a black businessman with children in county schools, said the system has made "tremendous strides" racially in Leonard Gereau's nine years as superintendent. "We now have black principals, black assistant principals. We even have a black assistant superintendent. These positions would never have occurred under Mr. Gereau's predecessor."
But, Harper said, "Perhaps the school administration may have gotten a little lax, and I think this is where the problem is stemming from now."
Blacks and whites get along and help each other in Franklin County's rural communities, Harper said. But he says the word "nigger" is used freely by whites.
"I think it's been such a habit, they don't realize they're offending people," he said. "The schools are certainly the place where we need to begin to address the problem."
But he's opposed to parents putting pressure on the school to oust the teacher who allegedly made the racist comment. "I think she's made a mistake, but I think she needs to be educated so she doesn't do that again. Firing her will not do anything. She'll just go to another school system and do the same thing."
Gibson, a 1971 graduate of Franklin County High, says he knows there are racial problems at his school.
He acknowledged that the word "nigger" sometimes is used by students. "We don't tolerate it," he said.
"There are tensions, certainly - racial tensions, community tensions, socioeconomic tensions." But Gibson said there are racial tensions everywhere. "It's not only Franklin County High School."
He said some fears expressed by black parents are well-founded.
"I have very serious concerns why more of our black students aren't in our advanced classes," he said. "We know the ability's there. Why aren't they in those classes? The perception that black students can't get a fair shake from some administrators is of concern. How I combat it, I don't know. Lord knows, we make mistakes everyday, not intentionally, not just racially, but every way."
But things are not nearly as bad as some parents fear, Gibson said. "I think a lot of it is based on misinformation. A lot of it is based on restrictions on what I can and cannot say. I don't know how to deal with accusations that have no basis."
Gibson's having trouble countering a rumor that the whole school system shut down early the day before the Feb. 26 snowstorm just so a student-produced program of black music and drama would be postponed.
"I don't know how such an absurd accusation could be made," Gibson said. Gereau had heard the snow would come early Thursday afternoon, so he closed the schools, Gibson said. Then the snow didn't start until that evening. (The students' program will be held instead on Monday.)
Seeking solutions
For a year, the school system and a Virginia Commonwealth University psychologist have been developing a multicultural education and sensitivity training program that may begin next fall. The psychologist is training teachers to conduct staff sensitivity workshops.
Gibson said he and others need to see things from other people's points of view. "I'm sure I offend people," Gibson said. "I don't mean to."
After school staffs are trained, he said, multicultural awareness will be woven into the curricula of every grade in the system, kindergarten to 12th.
Gibson says he's never felt so distressed in his whole career as he has in recent weeks. He said some black students and parents won't come talk to him about their suspicions, and he thinks it's because he's white.
Walter Harper said it's because they've gone to Gibson in the past. "Nothing happens," Harper said. "He acts as if it's something you've done. So what's happened is, the black parents won't call Mr. Gibson. They won't talk to him."
Keen said that when she's complained before to Gibson about racist comments and incidents involving individuals at the school, he told her he found such behavior hard to believe.
Gibson says he doesn't understand what he's doing wrong.
"We have good kids, black and white. They do extremely well," he said, citing their raising of thousands of dollars for scholarships, charities and medical expenses for a middle-school student with leukemia.
Reminding himself of the positives, he said, is the only way he's been able to deal with the stress and rumors these last few weeks.
"I have to get out now"
After three years at the school, Nadine Keen says she's had enough.
She will leave at the end of the school year.
In a letter of resignation she wrote in November, she said, "There is a fear of or an inability to address, with honesty and conviction, the racial tensions that have created the conflicts which involve not only students against students, but also professionals against professionals, and professionals against students."
Keen said she's had no response to her letter from top administrators, and things have gotten worse since she wrote it.
Last month, 50 black and six white students marched into a class to ask a teacher why black history articles they had written for the school paper had not been published. Keen said Gibson chastised her for supporting the protest.
In an interview, Gibson said that an earlier edition of the paper had listed Black History Month events, but he agreed with students that it was a serious oversight that the February paper had no black history stories. "It was a mistake not to have something in there," he said, but "the omission was not intentional."
The way the students' confronted the teacher, though, was improper, he said. "They did it very peacefully, very rationally, but right at the beginning of class. The method was wrong and their concern was valid."
Keen says she's heard rumors that white students want to beat her up - something Gibson said he hadn't heard. To protect her, students escort Keen to her car after late school activities, she said.
In the two years that Keen has organized Black History Month programs at the school, she said, student-made posters for the events have been torn down and marked with the words "nigger lover."
Gibson, standing in a hallway near two unmarked fliers for a black history program, said he hadn't heard about such vandalism, but he said students mark up all kinds of announcements.
At last week's meeting at the American Legion hall, parents urged Keen not to leave Franklin County High. They said their children need positive black role models.
Walter Harper's wife, Pat, squeezed Keen's hand and told her, "I really appreciate what you're trying to do. I wish we had more like you."
Keen said she can't stay. She wants to get an administrative job somewhere else, "where I can have a stronger voice and make a greater change."
Keen taught English for 10 years at Ferrum College in the county. She taught Franklin County students there, too.
"I've had enough of Franklin County," she said. "I have to get out now, while I still have some kind of blackness to me and some kind of sanity."