A week that began with students walking out of Shawnee Mission East High School over the school’s handling of a fight that included the hurling of racist slurs ended with the district’s superintendent assuring the community she and other officials are listening to students’ concerns.
Superintendent Michelle Hubbard’s message to families and staff members of the district went out late Friday morning, a day after some 100 people rallied at the district’s headquarters in Overland Park.
The walkout at SM East Monday and the circulation of a video showing the fight between a white male student and Black female student in which the boy called the girl the N-word multiple times set off a tumultuous week for the school and district, Hubbard acknowledged.
“I am writing to you at a difficult time for the Shawnee Mission School District family,” Hubbard’s message begins. “Many of you have seen an incredibly painful video from an incident that took place at Shawnee Mission East High School. The racist language that can be heard on that video is awful, completely unacceptable, and something we will never tolerate here in the Shawnee Mission School District.”
Both during the walkout Monday and at the rally Thursday evening, Black and Hispanic students who attend SM East described an environment of sometimes-casual racism at the Prairie Village school, in which they hear racist slurs or encounter comments and attitudes from white classmates based on racial stereotypes.
And their complaints, they say, about such interactions have often been ignored or passed off by school administrators, leaving them feeling isolated and anxious.
Hubbard pointed to the district’s efforts in recent years to make diversity a more central part of the district’s mission, a movement prompted, in part, by previous criticisms from parents and students of color.
“Here in SMSD, we remain committed to the work of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). In our 2019-2024 Strategic Plan, we affirm this community’s commitment to DEI. Strategy 2 says: ‘We will relentlessly create a fully unified, equitable and inclusive culture.’ The Shawnee Mission community has made clear that this is our work,” Hubbard wrote.
The family of the girl involved in the fight, Brey’Anna Brown, says her nose was broken during the altercation and that she received a five-day suspension, a punishment they question. Brown has said she was defending a classmate from another student’s racially insensitive comments before she was then confronted by the boy who hit her.
The 15-year-old student who fought with Brown has now been charged with felony aggravated battery in Johnson County District Court and, according to court records, is now in the custody of the county.
“I want them to really look deep into the school and check out what’s really going on. Listen to these kids, give them a chance to speak on these issues,” Shaun Brown, Sr., Brown’s father, said on Thursday.
In her message Friday, Hubbard nodded to the challenges schools face in dealing with students in an increasingly diverse and, at times, polarized world.
“Our schools do not exist apart from the broader society in which we live. All of us, including our children, have witnessed the decline in civility, from politicians to people in line at the grocery store. As always, our children are watching us, and sometimes, their behavior mirrors negative elements of our society. We mustdo better, as individuals, as a district, and as a nation,” she wrote.
Read Superintendent Hubbard’s full statement:
Dear Shawnee Mission School District Families and Staff,
I am writing to you at a difficult time for the Shawnee Mission School District family. Many of you have seen an incredibly painful video from an incident that took place at Shawnee Mission East High School. The racist language that can be heard on that video is awful, completely unacceptable, and something we will never tolerate here in the Shawnee Mission School District (SMSD). While I am unable to share with you any information about disciplinary actions we may have taken, I can assure you that we have followed the procedures outlined in our student handbook, and we will continue to send the clear message that racism has no place in our schools.
Our schools do not exist apart from the broader society in which we live. All of us, including our children, have witnessed the decline in civility, from politicians to people in line at the grocery store. As always, our children are watching us, and sometimes, their behavior mirrors negative elements of our society. We must do better, as individuals, as a district, and as a nation.
Here in SMSD, we remain committed to the work of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). In our 2019-2024 Strategic Plan, we affirm this community’s commitment to DEI. Strategy 2 says: “We will relentlessly create a fully unified, equitable and inclusive culture.” The Shawnee Mission community has made clear that this is our work. We have committed to this work within the parameter which says: “We will honor our diversity and treat each person with dignity and respect.”
We have taken important steps to move this work forward. We have hired a coordinator of diversity, equity and inclusion. We have Equity Practitioners at each building, and they meet monthly, along with four half-day meetings each year, in order to strengthen their work. Each school building has a DEI Building Team that spends two full days a year in professional development, in order to support their work at the building level. We have also developed opportunities for youth leadership development in our high schools through the Youth Equity Stewardship (YES!) program.
With all of this work and more happening across the district, the distressing behavior we saw in the video reminds us that we still have more work to do. Our students have been vocal this week in reminding us that we are not done. They have spoken loudly, and we are listening, both at Shawnee Mission East and across the district. What I saw on that video is NOT who we are, and we must do better. And we will.
Sincerely,
Dr. Michelle Hubbard
Superintendent
