Black activists want Lexington 2 principal fired after mentally disabled child cuffed
A coalition of Black activist groups are calling for the firing of Springdale Elementary School’s principal after a 10-year-old Black girl with special needs was handcuffed by the school’s police officer.
The group not only wants Principal Hope Vrana fired, but they are also calling for the Lexington 2 school district to remove all school resource officers and to hire more mental health professionals.
“We feel like (Vrana) failed to protect this student” said Dr. Sonya Davis-Lewis of the activist group One Common Cause Community Control Initiative. “She was derelict in her duty. We have no confident in her protecting students in vulnerable situations.”
The State reached out to Lexington 2 but did not hear back before publishing.
The demands come after an incident on May 12.
Spingdale Police Chief Andrew Richbourg said in a statement at the time that the student attacked others on a school bus and bit a teacher. Once staff and police got the student into the school, she tore down photos, hit windows and pulled another teacher’s hair, officials said. A Spingdale Police Department officer decided to put the child in handcuffs until her parent arrived.
The coalition had a different take on the incident, saying that the student “ran away from a school staff member whom (the 10-year-old student) had previously made allegations of abuse against.”
Vrana, who has been at the school since 2015, called police during the incident, the coalition said. She and other school employees ignored a crisis and behavioral plan, which was designed to guide staff on what to do in case the 10-year-old had a mental health crisis, according to the coalition.
In a statement through the activist coalition Thursday, the mother of the girl said that she has “documented a pattern of criminalization and targeting of her daughter’s behavior.” She said she’s made several complaints and filed a harassment, intimidation and bullying form with the school after she said her daughter was called a racial slur by another student on March 29, 2021.
“The inaction of Springdale Elementary has caused significant psychological harm for Angel (the 10-year-old girl), including nightmares and a fear of returning to school,” the coalition said in a statement.
Angel is not the child’s real name, which the activist group said it won’t release to protect her. The group also isn’t releasing the mother’s name for the same reason.
The incident at Springdale Elementary speaks to a larger pattern of discrimination against Black students and Black students with mental disabilities, the coalition said.
According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Black students in Lexington 2 are nearly twice as likely to be suspended as white students, the coalition said.
“Black students also make up the majority of youth receiving out-of-school suspensions and expulsions despite making up just 32% of student enrollment,” it said. “Nationwide, another report also from the Office of Civil Rights states that Black students with disabilities are almost three times more likely to be suspended than their white peers. Again, this reveals a pattern of systemic discrimination from school police, teachers, administrators and support staff.”
The coalition said it will demand the firing of Springdale’s principal and the removal of school police at a Thursday night Lexington 2 school board meeting. The coalition also wants other authority figures involved in the student being handcuffed to be fired, and they want the incident removed from the student’s record.
The coalition is made up of the South Carolina Black Activist Coalition, Black Lives Matter South Carolina, One Common Cause Community Control Initiative, Every Black Girl, EmpowerSC and Southern Coalition for Social Justice.
