Students protest in halls of Sandalwood High School after racially insensitive reports

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A student demonstration at Duval County’s largest school.

Sandalwood High School students waged a strike on Wednesday after a string of online reports sparked outrage.

It all started Tuesday with a message on Microsoft Teams from Sandalwood High School principal, Dr. Saryn Hatcher. It was this month to promote the school district’s mental health awareness campaign.

The ‘You Matter Month’ campaign caused outrage among many students because they thought it was a replacement for Black Lives Matter and by extension Black History Month, which also falls in February. DCPS spokesperson Tracy Pierce said the district recently diverted the branding of the campaign from the original message “#TakeOffTheMask” after causing some confusion and unintended mixed messages first reported by the Florida Times-Union.

Then, students reportedly posted racially insensitive comments about that Microsoft Teams thread, and the principal eventually closed the entire thread.

News4Jax spoke to the organizer and one of the protesters and they explained why they were leaving the class.

So then I thought, ‘OK, that’s the last straw. We are not being heard, ” said student and organizer Jara Enoch. “Our ideas and our concerns are not being voiced because we are currently being silenced. So I decided to post that post, I said peacefully, anyone can walk out at 12:30. And we are going to protest against it in the cafeteria. “

“We just felt like our school to have such a low respect for us,” said student Jodi Price. “We felt the need to go all in black and go through the halls chanting ‘Black Lives Matter’ because we feel like our voices aren’t being heard enough because of what’s going on these days, you know, a lot of violence and all. “

Both students said they have scheduled meetings with school administrators on Thursday.

District spokesman Tracy Pierce said there was no physical violence and no injuries were reported. There was some banging on and on tables, but there was no damage to school property, Pierce said.

By the end of the approximately two-hour demonstration, additional police officers had been called to the school, but they did nothing at all, they were only there to make sure that no one entered or left the campus without permission and to ensure that the campus was safe, the district said.

Kimberly Williams, 17, senior vice president of Sandalwood High School, said that while the protest did not go exactly as planned, there are still issues at the school that need to be addressed.

“Being with Sandalwood all four years, I witnessed racism and racist comments in my classes, and personally I didn’t know how to attack it and I feel like I wasn’t strong enough to say anything. , really no one, ”said Williams. “I just feel like we need a meeting so we can talk about it and get it out there … instead of pushing it down and ignoring it.”

Williams and other student government members plan to meet with school administrators to try to figure out the best way to progress and have productive discussions.

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