A Florida elementary school is facing public backlash after a group of Black students were targeted for low test scores on standardized tests while their counterparts weren’t pulled out of class.
Parents told First Coast News how their children, fourth and fifth graders who attend Bunnell Elementary School in the Daytona Beach suburb of Bunnell, Florida, felt singled out last Friday. One mother, identified as Dominique, said the teacher called her daughter and her peers out of the classroom by name.
“She let me know that when she looked back, all of her white classmates were still there, and all the Black children were leaving,” she told the outlet.
The students — regardless of their scores — were pulled into an assembly in the school cafeteria, where they were shown a presentation. One slide dubbed “The Problem” read: “[African Americans] have underperformed on standardized assessment for the last past three years… Only 32 percent… are at Level 3 or higher,” WESH reported.
In addition, the children were allegedly told that if they are not successful in the future, “they could end up being killed or go to jail,” per the report.
According to reports, multiple parents allege that the kids were also bribed with fast food gift cards if they improve their scores. The parents were also not informed that the assembly had happened.
“It became racial for me when they included and boxed all of the Black children together no matter if they were below average, average, or above average,” one parent explained to WESH, adding that her daughter “felt embarrassed because she had to go on stage … and made it seem like she was better than them.”
Superintendent LaShakia Moore released a statement emphasizing that “there was no malice” in the intention of the assembly at the school, where the student body is approximately 19 percent Black and 61 percent white. The statement noted that the school officials failed to mention it to parents and they would do better moving forward.
“However, sometimes, when you try to think ‘outside the box,’ you forget why the box is there,” Moore’s statement said, per the outlet. “While the desire to help this particular subgroup of students is to be commended, how this was done does not meet the expectations we desire among Flagler Schools.”
As Fox 35 reported on Thursday, the school’s principal and a teacher were suspended and placed on paid leave while an investigation was ongoing.
