A great story on "victimization". -- Current News & Views 2

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Date Posted: 16:24:15 01/31/02 Thu
Author: Barkley
Subject: A great story on "victimization".

This is amazing. Unbelievable. Unfathomable. Incredible.

I especially like the part about poor little junior taking a swing at a teacher and being treated unfairly as a result.

Link

School incidents frustrating to picketers

By DIANE LONG
Staff Writer

On three mornings in the last two weeks, a small group of parents has braved the early chill to parade with protest signs at the gates of Metro's Antioch High School.

To Principal Sharon Anthony, the protesters are overreacting to one family's bitter disappointment that their son was cut from a sports team.

''This all seems to be coming to a head over the young man not making the basketball team,'' Anthony said. ''I've never had anyone to do this or to act this way in all my years of being an administrator.''

But a half-dozen parents say the basketball situation is just the straw that forced them to band together.

Over the past two years, they say, they've each been frustrated by a situation that involves their children at the 2,100-student school in southeastern Davidson County. After what they perceive as a deaf ear from the school, the parents have turned to picketing on the public road at the school's entrance.

''We're not going away,'' said Wanda Bryant, guardian of a child at the school and director of the Pacesetters Youth Ministry, a mentoring and sports program she and her husband run as a volunteer activity. The children of several protesting families are involved with her mentoring program.

''We want to see if we can get a forum to have a community meeting to really express the concerns that we have for this school,'' Bryant said. ''We have a voice and we want it to be heard and we're not going away.''

Many of the incidents related by the parents and their children are impossible to nail down because the interpretation of a situation depends on whom you ask. For example:

� Two years ago, Bryant said, the school refused a request from her daughter Loleta to organize events for Black History Month. But Anthony, who said she doesn't remember the specific situation, said such events are always allowed.

''We've always had assemblies and activities surrounding � Black History Month,'' Anthony said. ''We've had something for every year for the 13 years I've been at Antioch.''

� Mattie Gilmore protested with the group last week because two years ago, her son Jason was expelled for taking a swing at a teacher � an act she still believes he didn't commit.

''They wouldn't let me talk to the teacher,'' Gilmore said. ''The first little thing that comes up, that child gets suspended from school.''

� Gilmore's daughter, who now attends the school, said that teacher Keith Dickey called the protesters ''idiots'' last week.

''One of my classmates was asking the teacher why they were out there protesting,'' said 10th-grader Jamiya Gilmore. ''He was like, 'I don't know,' and then he made that comment.''

Dickey denies making the remark.

''I would never say that,'' he said. ''I do feel there are better ways to go about accomplishing something, but would I call them stupid? Absolutely not.''

� Parent Carissia Dixon-Malone hasn't been involved in the protests, but last month she wrote a letter to Anthony and Schools Director Pedro Garcia when she felt that teacher Kenneth Stonecipher was disrespectful to her in a hallway crowded by students. She said the teacher was ''ranting'' at her about her son's behavior.

''He should have been reprimanded,'' said Dixon-Malone, who acknowledged that her son has had frequent disciplinary problems. ''If a kid had done that � they would have gotten thrown out of school. What happens to the teacher?''

Anthony said she responded to Dixon-Malone by phone and mail to say Stonecipher's remarks were misinterpreted.

''Her son had been removed from his class due to disorderly conduct,'' Anthony said. ''And he said, 'Your son needs to straighten up.' ''

Other complaints fall into a gray area where the principal must make a call on the solution.

When 12th-grader Adrian Davis was cut from the basketball team in November, Anthony stood behind Coach Barry Mangrum's decision.

''The coach is responsible for making the decisions about the basketball or the football or the track team, etc.,'' she said. ''As long as the process is fair, they have the right and the responsibility to choose their teams and coach their teams.''

As a dad, Terry Davis sees it differently, especially since Adrian had been on the team since ninth grade.

''He came home from school and tears were in his eyes, and he said, 'Dad, I got cut from the team,' '' Davis said.

''If he had been left on the team, even second or third string, I think he would have eventually proved himself to the coach or he could have quit the team. It would have been his choice.''

The complaints nettle Anthony, who said she and her staff make a point to meet with parents.

''You just work it in,'' Anthony said about parent meetings.

''You try to make it as high a priority as you can. I may not get it done that day or in 24 hours, but generally, we certainly make an attempt to.''

She's upset that her school's reputation is being impugned.

''We have a first-rate operation,'' she said. ''We have a very, very good staff that works very hard at dealing with all kinds of needs and the requests of families. But there is a difference between trying to be responsive and capitulating to threats and intimidation. These are pretty weak elements, to cast an aspersion on this school and us.''

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Replies:

Re: A great story on "victimization". -- sigh, 09:21:05 02/01/02 Fri