MARIANNA ---A 3-2 vote by the School Board to uphold Jackson County Schools Superintendent Daniel Sims’ recommendations for disciplining a middle school teacher for writing a racial slur in class nearly caused an uprising Thursday night.
Nothing appeared to divide Jackson County’s families and School Board members more than what type of disciplinary action teacher Greg Howard should receive.
Howard is the Marianna Middle School teacher who wrote a racially charged comment on an erase board in his seventh grade social studies class. Howard altered the commonly used phrase from presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign from the word change to “C.H.A.N.G.E. – Come Help a (N-word) Get Elected.”
Sims recommended Howard receive a 10-day suspension without pay – worth about $2,500 and a written reprimand. Howard is required to write letters of apology to students, give up his coaching duties and any pay associated with coaching and take diversity sensitivity training. The vote was taken despite strong comments from the audience.
My response:
I don't really know how I feel about this. I mean, from everything I know about this incident, the man was joking. It was in poor taste, for sure, but it was a joke nonetheless. In fact, I received a text message from a friend with the same information in it. I laughed 'cause it was funny. The difference is, my friend is black so I wasn't offended. I don't know enough about this to say more but I will say this. Some people just want the spotlight and they will hop thier behinds in it no matter who they destroy in the process. Why don't we attend board meetins over the fact that our children are still scoring lower on standardized tests than their white counterparts. Why don't we stop allowing teacher's unions to lie to us and tell us that vouchers, charter schools, and other methods of school choice is bad for our kids when in reality it's only bad for them. This looks too much like the blind leading the blind. Yeah...I said that. Whatever.
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