An elementary school in Flagler County, Florida, has placed its principal and one of its teachers on paid administrative leave after it was discovered that a separate assembly had been held for Black students in grades four and five. During this assembly, the students were informed as a group that they needed to improve their academic performance regardless of their individual grades. The revelation led to the suspension of the principal and the teacher in question.
The two staff were placed on leave immediately after the assembly that took place on August 18 at Bunnell Elementary School. According to the spokesperson for Flagler County Schools, Jason Wheeler, only African American students from those two classrooms participated in the activity.
Cheryl Massaro, chair of the Flagler County School Board, told CNN in an email that during the assembly, a PowerPoint presentation titled “Goals and Objectives for the 2023-2024 School Year” was used. In the presentation, it was stated that “AA have underperformed (sic) on standardized assessment for the last past 3 years.”
“AA” is an abbreviation for African American, and the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) requires annual reporting on this demographic information from all schools located within the state of Florida. In an email, Massaro said that the conclusions of the data were presented in the form of a power point presentation that had been created by one of the presenters.
“This should not have happened, but it did,” Lashakia Moore, the interim superintendent of Flagler Schools, said during a news conference on Thursday, apologizing to the children and their families for what had transpired.
“We make no excuses for what happened, offer our apology, and offer actionable actions for us to move forward in supporting our students, supporting our schools, and supporting this community,” she said. “We apologize for the disruption that this has caused.”
It is up to me to determine ‘why did this happen?’ since it is my responsibility to do so. We are now conducting an investigation, and once we get the results, we will determine how to proceed.
Moore asserts that she has communicated with the majority of the impacted families.
“We have either spoken face-to-face or over the phone,” she said, adding that parents were “upset, concerned as to how and why it happened, but the majority of families that I spoke with their end conversation was ‘what do we do now, how do we work together as a community which is inclusive of our families, how do we work together in order to ensure that we are never in this place again?’” “We have either spoken face-to-face or over the phone,” she said.
Moore mentioned how in the past, educators and parents would have private chats about the development of their children.
It is of the utmost importance that our students be familiar with the setting in which they will be competing. Moore said that in order to assist these students in achieving their goals, “we put procedures, strategies, and interventions in place.”
Moore said that she and Donelle Evensen, the principle of Bunnell Elementary School, had a chat on Tuesday, and that they “have been able to talk about what led to this assembly and steps that were or were not taken before or after it.” Evensen declined to comment on the conversation.
After having a conversation with Mrs. Evensen, I am confident in saying that none of those responsible for planning this outreach to kids intended any damage. However, when striving to think “outside the box,” it is simple to lose sight of the reason why the box was created in the first place.
Although it is admirable that attempts were made to assist this group of students, unfortunately, such efforts did not live up to the standard of excellence that we anticipate from Flagler County schools. We promote participation in the educational process on the part of all of the parents and guardians of our students. Since our parents were unaware of this assembly or the attempts to enhance these grades, their level of participation in our school’s activities was limited.