The principal of a high school in Montgomery County, Maryland, is on leave after officials say the school delayed reporting an act of racism at the school.
Someone wrote a racial slur on the desk of a Black student on Monday, Dec. 3 at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, Montgomery County Public Schools’ head of school support and improvement Peter Moran said in a letter to families on Friday, days after the incident. The school experienced another racist incident earlier this year, Moran said.
“The delay in the reporting and response to this incident only caused further harm to the Black students, staff, and community and left feelings of being unwelcome and unsafe, and that Wootton is not a school where they have a sense of belonging,” Moran said in the letter.
Principal Douglas Nelson was put on administrative leave, Montgomery County Public Schools spokesperson Liliana López confirmed to News4 on Tuesday. López said she could not give any further comment about Nelson’s leave.
“As district wide school leaders, the response was not up to our expectations, and we need to do better,” Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Taylor and Moran said in a joint letter to the Wootton community on Sunday.
Taylor and Moran said the student or students responsible for the racist message would face consequences laid out in the school system’s code of conduct.
Students, staff and others in the community pleaded Friday for MCPS to take concrete steps to end hate at Wootton and throughout the district, Taylor and Moran said.
The officials said in their letter they planned to do the following:
- Provide mental health and support, including having crisis counselors, and school psychologists on hand at Wootton High School to help anyone in need
- Train staff at the school to “enhance our response to hate and bias incidents”
- Host a community dialogue session to engage caregivers, students and others in the Wootton community
“We recognize that our response to this incident harmed many of you, and we look forward to this upcoming discussion. We deeply appreciate the voices of our Black students and the community, who have shared their concerns and expectations and offered thoughtful strategies to combat racism and foster progress,” Taylor and Moran said.
Moran said Friday he would be supervising activities and operations at the school for the next several days.