A Black mother of students at Admiral Westphal Elementary in Dartmouth is raising concerns about the school’s handling of ongoing instances of racist bullying at the school that resulted in one of her children being called the N-word by a white classmate.
She said she repeatedly tried to address the issue with the school. When those attempts failed, she said she finally met with the school’s principal and guidance counsellor when she showed up at the school unannounced last week.
Admiral Westphal Elementary. Photo: Google Maps.
The mother, who asked to remain anonymous, said she was confused when one of her children asked her last Thursday what the N-word meant. It was then she learned that the same student who’d been bullying her children with racist taunts since the start of the school year had been sent home Thursday for calling them the N-word.
“They were both called monkey and the N-word, like, the little boy continuously said to them, ‘No monkey games’, ‘No monkeys over here,’” she said. “[The student] just always said the N-word, like all the time.”
“This hasn’t been the first time. This has been going on since probably the beginning of the school year.”
She said her children constantly complained to the lunch monitors, but that nothing ever was done so they stopped complaining altogether. She said the most recent incident was only brought to the attention of school staff when another white student spoke up and told on the bullying child.
The mother said that in the past the bullying was so bad the children’s teacher reached out to her and tried to set up a meeting with her and the principal before the Christmas break. The mother said that meeting was cancelled because of COVID restrictions implemented late last year.
She said she learned of the latest incident from her child on Thursday and called the principal the next day to set up a meeting. She said the principal told her she’d call her back on Monday. The mother said Monday came and went without hearing back from the principal.
Seeking solutions
周二，母亲说她早点离开了学校与校长交谈。
当她到达时，她说局长不会让她进入，但是一个教育计划助理（EPA）出来与她交谈。
“And I’m like, well, if nobody wants to talk to me, I’m just going to follow the school bus home because I’m going to find out where [the child] lives at and talk to his parents because my kids aren’t going to be called the N-word and then him returning to school and continuously doing it and getting away with it.”
她说ENA然后去了，并得到了校长，然后邀请她进入学校。她说，校长在她平静地等待的时候“全部疯狂地跑去”。母亲称海军上将韦斯特斯帕尔小学没有非洲新星苏格兰人的支持工作者，但有一个兼职指导顾问，谁是黑人，每周两天就在学校。该辅导员还在许多其他学校工作。
她说校长告诉她，她想等待指导顾问加入会议。
“She’s a guidance counsellor, but she’s a [former] Black teacher at the school, so they wanted her to handle it,” she said.
After 10 or 15 minutes, she said the guidance counsellor arrived and told her that she had just sent her an e-mail.
“我就像，这是星期二，这发生在星期四，你现在只是发送电子邮件？”
Impromptu meeting
母亲说,在周二的会议上,革命制度党ncipal claimed she was unaware that the racist bullying was an ongoing issue. However, the mother said the principal knew because the teacher told her.
“And then the principal’s like, ‘Well, I just didn’t feel like I should handle it. I felt like [the guidance counsellor] should handle it just because she could relate to [your children].”
The mother said she was further upset to learn that the guidance counsellor had met with her children about the incident, unbeknownst to her, and without her permission, and that no one had apparently talked to the student who used the N-word beyond sending him home for a half a day.
她说她了解到，虽然学校在周四没有联系她这件事，但他们确实联系了孩子们的父亲。母亲说她是监禁父母，但应该与儿童有关的问题联系。
The mother said that throughout the meeting she was the one who was looking for solutions and that she and the guidance counsellor discussed possible means of intervention. She said the principal took notes, but looked mainly to the guidance counsellor to implement next steps.
What’s the policy?
“There are no policies in place, but when I asked her, ‘Why did you think it was okay just to send [the white student] home for a half a day and then bring him back? It’s not like a real suspension.’ [The principal said] ‘Well, there’s protocol around the suspension.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, well, where is this protocol at?’”
在回答关于周围的学校政策的问题，围绕着抗黑色种族主义欺凌和NOVA SCOTIA小学的N-WORD的使用，代表全省教育部长Becky Druhan表示，部分：
我想加强任何形式的种族主义是不可接受的，在我们的任何学校都不容忍。虽然我不能与特定事件交谈，但我确认HRCE正在研究此事。
It is my expectation that schools and Regional Centre for Educations/CSAP always respond to any form of racism, violence or bullying in accordance with theProvincial School Code of Conductand that any allegation be taken very seriously. If someone feels a response to unacceptable behaviour was not handled appropriately, I encourage them to reach out to their school principal or to the regional centre for education.
In a separate e-mail, Kelly Connors, the Acting Coordinator of Communications for the Halifax Regional Centre for Education said:
我们致力于确保哈利法克斯区域教育中心所有学生和工作人员的安全，积极和包容性的学习环境。
Racist behaviour and/or the use of racial slurs are never tolerated and will always be addressed by the school’s administration in accordance with the Provincial School Code of Conduct.
The Code of Conduct outlines the potential responses to unacceptable behaviour. Individual responses to unacceptable behaviors range according to the circumstances and are based on a number of factors:
• the student’s age;
• the developmental level of the student;
• the severity of the incident;
• be chosen primarily for their educational value; and
•公平，公平，尊重所有参与的尊严。When harm is done, we know it’s important to educate those involved and to repair and restore relationships. In elementary school, some of the strategies can include restorative approaches (where administrators and teachers bring students together to talk about why certain behaviours cause harm to others), coaching to develop new behaviour, meeting with families and providing additional support through school team members.
如果父母/监护人曾担心孩子的安全和福祉，我们鼓励他们向学校校长联系。
**I can assure you that students involved in any form of racist behaviour would receive immediate and appropriate consequences for their actions.由于我们的学生隐私义务，我们并不自由地分享与具体事件或学生后果相关的信息。我们研究了指控Admiral Westphal Elementary to ensure theProvincial School Code of Conductwas followed and appropriate actions were taken.**
The mother said she feels the school may have missed the mark by not addressing the situation directly with the white child right away.
“But it’s definitely worth bringing it up to his parents and sitting down and having a serious conversation,” she said.
“And I think it’s definitely worth my kids and me and him and his parents all getting together and then all apologizing to us because I feel like we’re all owed an apology.”
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