SHERMAN OAKS (CBSLA.com) — The controversy over a black principal at a charter elementary school in Sherman Oaks has now gone to the LAUSD school board.
The board voted 6-1 to demote the principal to assistant principal.
Principal Kesia Doucette says this all started with a parent meeting that didn't go well in October. It has now spiraled into accusations of racial discrimination that have some parents divided.
For the first time, we are hearing from the principal at the center of allegations of racial discrimination at Riverside Drive Charter Elementary.
”I am aware that I'm the only female African-American principal within a 10 mile radius of the other schools. And there have been things that have been said," Doucette said.
Doucette says a small group of parents have attacked the way she dresses and made derogatory comments about the color of her skin.
”I was told that I should be embarrassed to be a black woman," Doucette said.
Deon Bush is a parent to two students. He says a small group of white, affluent parents are dividing the school. He brought a stack of letters from fellow parents who he says admire and respect Doucette.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2017...ys-she-is-being-demoted-because-she-is-balck/
Riverside Drive Charter Elementary seems to be an affiliated Charter school, which is a charter school run by the LAUSD school board.
”Basically because they did not like the fact that I was an African-American female," Doucette said about the opposition she faced.
”Within my five years, I did experience a lot of racist behavior," she said, adding that some parents complained that she talked only with black parents and didn't give other parents equal attention. The school's population of black students is 8 percent, Doucette said.
There were also complaints about her choice of clothing, her cellphone use and her decision to have her nephew attend the school, she said. These parents also questioned her qualifications, she said.
Parents from perhaps 10 families had complaints about her, Doucette said. They took their complaints to Doucette's former director, she said
Doucette said she has now been made an assistant principal, a demotion, and assigned to three separate schools. She declined to name the schools, saying she isn't familiar enough with them yet.
Things reached a boiling point about six months ago, Doucette said. At a parent meeting, a person made an offensive, and untrue, remark about a woman who was not present, Doucette said. That later led to a confrontation on the campus between two fathers, which students witnessed. Some questioned Doucette's handling of the situation.
http://www.dailynews.com/social-aff...ays-race-played-role-in-her-demotion-by-lausd