A teacher in Rochester, NY, has been placed on leave and is being investigated after a parent said he told students to pick cotton during a class on slavery, school district officials said.
Last week, parents of seventh graders at the Rochester School of the Arts said Patrick Rausch, a white social studies teacher, gave his students cotton balls on Tuesday and gave them instruction. pick out the seeds.
Parents also said Mr. Rausch calls himself “massah” and allows white students to stop wiping cotton when they ask, but not to black students.
“This has been going on all year,” said Vialma Ramos-O’Neal, the mother of a student in Rausch’s class, in a Facebook post, describing another form of racist treatment. she said her son had been in Rausch’s class. . “I’m so angry and hurt for these kids.”
In a statement, Brendan O’Riordan, a spokesman for the Rochester Board of Education, said the district had dismissed Rausch and launched an investigation shortly after learning of the allegations. Mr Rausch could not be reached for comment.
“The district takes these situations very seriously, as the school community’s descriptions of what happened in the classroom are extremely disturbing,” said Mr. O’Riordan.
Ramos-O’Neal said in an interview that when her son Jahmiere O’Neal, 13, came home and told her what had happened, she didn’t believe him at first. “I have to be honest, I don’t think that’s really going to be what we’re going to do today,” she said.
But then she saw a Facebook post from another outraged parent, Precious Tross Morris, showing cotton balls she said her daughter, 13-year-old Ja’Nasia Brown, was in the same class as. Mr. Rausch brought home from school that day.
“My daughter is traumatized,” Tross Morris said in an interview, adding that the day after the episode, her daughter didn’t want to go to school and purposely missed the bus to avoid attending class. by Mr. Rausch.
Mrs. Tross Morris said: “She spoke in a low voice like she was in great distress, she just smiled. “He mocked slavery.”
Both Ms Tross Morris and Ms Ramos-O’Neal wrote on Facebook that their children had privately told them that in another lesson Mr Rausch had forced them to wear handcuffs as part of a magic trick and that Mr. ordered them to free themselves. Both parents said the students were scolded for not being able to escape.
“When he couldn’t get away with it,” Ms Ramos-O’Neal said of her son, to which Mr Rausch replied: “It’s okay, your ancestors couldn’t do it either.”
Ramos-O’Neal said her son, who is African-American and Puerto Rican, has struggled with his racial identity.
She always tries to teach him that “he is the perfect blend of two rich cultures with a very solid historical background and he is a powerful king and he should never be bad.” shame to be one or the other,” she said.
But he told her that after his encounter with Mr. Rausch, he didn’t want to identify himself as Black anymore because non-Black students seemed to have preferential treatment in the class.
Ms. Ramos-O’Neal said of Mr Rausch’s impact on her son: “I feel like he broke everything I’ve taught him all this time.
Based on state school admissions dataabout half of the students at the School of the Arts are black, and about 65 percent are considered economically disadvantaged.
In a letter to the families of the school’s seventh graders on Thursday, the school’s principal, Kelly Nicastro, said a substitute teacher has been assigned to Mr. Rausch’s class. Ms. Nicastro added that the school may interview students as part of its investigation and that counselors will be available to anyone in need.
Save Rochester, a community organization dedicated to alleviating poverty in the region, held a Zoom meeting Monday night to discuss the situation. Addressing nearly 50 attendees, Ms. Ramos-O’Neal and Ms. Tross Morris recounted what their children had told them.
Felicia Monroe, parent of a first-grader at another school in the district, said: “I’m really sorry this happened to your child and I need us to understand that he doesn’t teach about slavery, he is teaching our children how to be slaves.”
Many parents and community members have called for school officials to fire Mr. Rausch, and revoke his teaching license.
Rochester schools have faced disturbing allegations of racism in the past. Last November, a video of a white student in suburban Pittsford holding an airgun and death threats against Black people have prompted a number of parents and other students to speak out about their exposure to racism in the community.
Teachers in schools across the country have been disciplined for racist and discriminatory lesson plans. In Washington, DC, an elementary school librarian was laid off in December after instructing third graders to reenact the Holocausttold them to dig mass graves and carry out shootings.
Mike Johnson, director of Save Rochester, said he was an alumnus of the School of the Arts and was shocked when he saw Ms. Tross Morris’ Facebook post last week. Now he and other members of the community are calling for Mr Rausch to resign or be fired.
Mr Johnson said: “I never thought a teacher would do this kind of damage to students in their classroom.
The reports are particularly painful, he added, as the community is still healing from 2020 death of Daniel Prudea Black man, after Rochester police officers covered his face with a mesh hood and pressed his head to the ground.
Mr Johnson said he had hoped Rochesters would commit more to tackling racism in the community afterwards.
“It looks like this whole thing has taken a huge leap back from what we were trying to achieve,” he said.
Kirsten Noyes research contributions.
