{"id":2347,"date":"2010-07-08T06:31:53","date_gmt":"2010-07-08T10:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2347"},"modified":"2010-07-08T07:14:22","modified_gmt":"2010-07-08T11:14:22","slug":"hate-comes-to-saranac-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/07\/08\/hate-comes-to-saranac-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Hate comes to Saranac Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saranac Lake’s school district is grappling with what appears to be a truly horrific case of racial bullying that went on for months right under the noses of teachers and school officials.<\/p>\n

The final straw came on June 21st, when a 12-year-old girl’s backpack was broken into and vandalized, allegedly by other middle school children.<\/p>\n

They allegedly used the victim’s deodorant stick to write a racial slur — including the N-word — on a wall.\u00a0 According to the Adirondack Daily Enterprise<\/a>, school officials failed to completely clean up the graffiti for more than a week.<\/p>\n

For those of us with children in the Saranac Lake district, the ugliness of this case comes as a terrible shock.\u00a0 My son Nicholas, who is 14, just graduated from Petrova Middle School.<\/p>\n

When I asked him about the case, and about his experience with racial- and other hate-inspired behavior at the school, he seemed baffled.<\/p>\n

Frankly, so was I.\u00a0 In February 2001, I reported on the district’s push to drop its ‘racist’ mascot name — “Redskins” was changed to “Red Storm.”<\/p>\n

While many alums opposed the change — which was eventually voted through — the vast majority of the rhetoric during that debate<\/a> was civil, respectful and responsible.<\/p>\n

I’ve written before about my own experiences as the victim of bullying and I’ve praised the Saranac Lake district for being aggressive about creating a healthy, safe environment for kids.<\/p>\n

This case suggests that a lot more work needs to be done.\u00a0 In a letter published on its website, school district officials acknowledge as much.<\/p>\n

“Beginning immediately, we will review every protocol and policy related to bullying and harassment.\u00a0 We will examine and revise how we teach tolerance and diversity to our children.\u00a0 We will work with our staff to make certain that all children are valued and that no child comes to school afraid.\u00a0 We cannot allow what happened to this child happen to another.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fair enough.\u00a0 But I’m not sure that even now school district officials understand the gravity of their failure in allowing one of our kids to face this kind of attack over months and perhaps even years.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Plattsburgh Press-Republican<\/a>, Superintendent Gerald Goldman said administrators have “got to become a little more cognizant of what that culture [outside the classroom] is going to look like.”<\/p>\n

A little bit more cognizant won’t cut it.\u00a0 And a review of future policies may not give us the information we need about what went wrong here.<\/p>\n

According to the child’s mother, at least some of this harassment was reported early on to Petrova’s dean of students.<\/p>\n

The district needs to find out exactly what teachers, counselors and administrators knew about this case as it was unfolding.<\/p>\n

If they were aware of the tone and severity of these racist and bigoted attacks, we need to know:\u00a0 Why was nothing done sooner?\u00a0 Were existing policies followed?\u00a0 And if not, who is responsible?<\/p>\n

Finally, there is a painful question here that goes beyond policies and protocols.<\/p>\n

If a racial slur can remain graffitied on the wall of one of our North Country schools for days without being washed off — and without triggering serious alarms — what does that say about the broader culture in our schools?<\/p>\n

I’m not talking now about the culture among middle-schoolers.\u00a0 I’m talking about the view of every adult — parents, teachers, administrators — who walks those halls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saranac Lake’s school district is grappling with what appears to be a truly horrific case […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2348,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347\/revisions\/2348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}