Community members organized by Black Lives Matter Vermont gathered at Milton Middle School Friday morning to protest the school’s suspension of a student over an incident in which the student was called a racial slur.
In a Facebook post, Maria Twitty wrote that a classmate told her daughter at school on Wednesday, “I hate all you black people, you (n-word) at this school.”
Twitty said that when her daughter told Kaitlin Dew, the school’s behavioral specialist, about the incident, Dew told her to return to class and that she was making matters worse. (Dew later called Twitty to apologize for her handling of the situation.) Twitty said that when she saw her daughter at home, she was “distraught, she was angry, she was crying, she was hysterical.”
Dew declined to comment, citing federal student privacy laws.
Twitty said that when she spoke to the school’s Principal, Becky Day, and Superintendent, Ann Bradshaw, by phone later Wednesday evening, the administrators told her they thought her daughter should take a day off from school. When Twitty questioned their suggestion, she says, the administrators hung up the phone.
Bradshaw would not confirm that Twitty’s daughter was suspended, citing privacy concerns. Twitty’s daughter was required to attend a re-entry meeting, which typically follows a suspension.
Ebony Nyoni, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Vermont, organized community members to gather at the school Friday morning at the same time as the student’s re-entry meeting. Superintendent Bradshaw provided the group with a conference room and joined them to discuss “how we can make things better moving forward,” she said.
“I know that our culture is in need of improvement,” Bradshaw added. She came away from the meeting feeling that “we may be able to get some support from Black Lives Matter to work on pieces of that.”
Nyoni said the meeting “wasn’t as productive as we would have liked,” and that Bradshaw “just wasn’t really receptive at all.” She said that if the superintendent does not take further steps to improve the treatment of students and increase diversity at the school, “we’re going to have community meetings, we’re going to approach the school board, and we’re going to demand that she step down from her position.”
Black Lives Matter Vermont has called for Bradshaw’s resignation on their Facebook page. Nyoni said that if community meetings and school board appeals do not lead to action, they would file a civil suit. “It’s time for her to go,” Nyoni said, “and hopefully she can go without being forced out.”
Twitty said her daughter left the school after this morning’s meeting because she did not feel comfortable. Twitty plans to accompany her daughter to school on Monday if she attends. “It’s a disgrace. It’s disgusting,” Twitty said. “I’ve lost all faith in Milton’s schools.”
Editor’s note: This post has been updated to remove a racist slur from a quote to be in line with VTDigger’s current editorial standards.
