Beaufort Co. parents say principal singled out black students’ test scores, behavior problems
Lady’s Island Middle School parents are accusing the school’s principal of a “racist act” after they say he singled out black students last week for low test scores, chronic absenteeism and behavioral issues in a presentation about state testing results.
Parent Lakiesha Warren-Chisolm said principal Gregory Hall told students, including her sixth-grader, that only three black students in the sixth grade were reading at grade level and that black students had high levels of absenteeism due to suspensions.
“This is how my kids took it: that he told us we’re dumb, and we can’t read,” she said Monday.
Hall’s presentation was given to each grade level and included slides that highlighted the racial demographic with the lowest scores, which in all categories was black students. In one case, Hall also highlighted Hispanic students, who represented the second-lowest scores in one category.
“That’s data that we have to identify,” Hall said Monday. “... the feedback gave me a sense they were upset about how the data was presented, not the data.”
According to 2018 data from the school district, black students make up 50 percent of Lady’s Island Middle School’s student body. White students represent 36 percent and Hispanic students represent 10 percent.
Hall said Monday that he intended to “challenge” students by showing them the school’s SC READY and MAP test results, which clocked in below district averages.
“What I intended to be motivating and challenging was upsetting, and that crushed me,” Hall said.
A Facebook post about the meetings on Warren-Chisolm’s page garnered nearly 200 comments, most from parents agreeing with her assessment.
“I was told he highlighted everything that pertained to ‘African-American students,’” parent Crystal Simmons wrote Thursday. “How the African-American students are not meeting grade levels.”
Samantha Rashell Hills wrote Thursday: “They don’t want us to prosper.... Dr. Hall did a racist act today and I don’t like it.”
School board member William Smith, who represents parts of Lady’s Island, commented on Warren-Chisolm’s Facebook post, asking “what happened” and commenting the time and date for the school board’s next meeting: Tuesday at 6 p.m., at the County Council Chambers in Beaufort.
“We must handle things decent and in order because that is not what some people expect of us and I don’t want them to have any reason to call the police on anybody,” Smith wrote in response to another comment.
Hall, who has worked in the district since 2011 and was named principal in 2016, emailed parents early Friday morning: “Quite a few parents have expressed concerns about academic and disciplinary data presentations that were shared with students yesterday.”
He announced two Friday meetings with parents, one of which was scheduled at 9:30 that morning, to “offer feedback and suggestions on how we can work together, as a team, to address the challenges that these data illustrate.”
“He apologized to parents, and said that in the future he should present this data to parents,” Beaufort County School District spokesman Jim Foster said of the Friday meetings.
“In no way was that the intent, to embarrass,” Hall said Monday. “Disaggregating the data, it was probably challenging to see that as students.”
Warren-Chisolm said she was unimpressed by the Friday morning meeting she attended, and didn’t hear an apology there.
“Other parents were so upset they started leaving,” she said. “It seemed like no one cared, but they wanted to seem like they cared.”
Foster said that Hall plans on setting up another meeting for parents on an upcoming Saturday, and another series of grade-level meetings to apologize to students.
“We preach and I preach that we want our students to rebuild relationships when we hurt feelings, and that’s what I believe and want to do,” Hall said.
This story was originally published February 3, 2020 at 4:07 PM.