Board members allege racism in Springfield school district after principal is reassigned
Current and former Springfield District 186 board of education members hurled accusations of racism after a Black principal was moved from Matheny-Withrow Elementary School and given a different job.
Charlena Jackson, who had been principal at Matheny-Withrow since 2021, was approved as the district's coordinator of Project SCOPE (Serving Children of Parents Employed) at Tuesday's board meeting.
That move came after some 20 teachers and staff members from the school wrote a scathing letter to District Superintendent Jennifer Gill and school board members earlier in February contending that a change in leadership there was not only "necessary but imperative."
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School board member Erica Austin said the Springfield Education Association, the teacher's union, was tearing down female principals of color and offering "little to no support for them."
Austin, who is Black, said the District was allowing "microaggressions and systematic racism to run rampant on our watch."
Austin's predecessor, Judith Johnson, who served on the school board for 20 years, said in the public comment section later in the meeting that "racism is rampant in District 186 and I put that responsibility on the superintendent and the board members who are not speaking up for the personnel who are employed.
"Nobody wants to pay attention to a Black principal because they don't want to hear their words and that has to cease and desist. This has been a very troubling period for a number of years of here."
SEA president Aaron Graves said accusations of misogyny and racism being lobbed at the union were "insulting and untrue. The union, which I take 100% responsibility for in my current leadership position, is a union that stands behind what's best for kids."
Graves added that District leadership "refused to address a problem that festered (at Matheny-Withrow) for a long while."
Austin and another board member, Buffy Lael-Wolf, voted "present" on Jackson's move.
Lael-Wolf agreed that systematic racism was present in the city and the school district.
"It's getting called out in bigger and better ways and so the next question is what do we do?" Lael-Wolf said Wednesday. "That's a bigger question and one the District had struggled with since (1974 when a consent decree was imposed on the District).
"We do need more Black teachers. We do need more Black administrators. Those need to be part of our District in a very real way and Ms. Austin's comments shed light to we're not doing, what we should be doing."
The Springfield school board signed a consent decree in 1975 admitting the district’s schools were segregated. The consent decree governing the district resulted in the creation of a busing system that helped balance out the white and Black populations at the schools. The district also was ordered, among other things, to hire more Black teachers.
Lael-Wolf said her vote for "present" was her concern for the process used to move Jackson, not against her personally.
Austin said she hoped the District would "do (Matheny-Withrow) justice and put another person of color in that position. Representation truly matters and our children deserve to see greatness all aspects of school."
Jackson has been employed by the District since 1999. She formerly served principal of the Early Learning Center from 2017 to 2021.
Jackson will take the SCOPE leadership position from Cheryl Doss, who is retiring this summer.
In a statement, Gill said Jackson would finish out the school year at Matheny-Withrow and then transition into the new job.
District spokeswoman Rachel Dyas said Gill wasn't available Wednesday for additional comment.
Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: School board member in Springfield says racism is rampant in District
