NORTH CARROLLTON - A parent has withdrawn a petition drive at Marshall Elementary School to get rid of a teacher accused of using a racial slur.
Marshall PTO president Louise Amos McCaskill said Tuesday night she has dropped plans for the petition asking for the teacher's removal from the school because the fourth-grade teacher isn't working at Marshall now. The alleged incident occurred late last week.
School authorities have refused to identify the teacher.
Marshall Elementary Principal Laura Curry confirmed the teacher is no longer working at the school. She declined further comment, saying what happens now is in the hands of Carroll County's superintendent of schools, Billy Joe Ferguson.
Ferguson said the teacher still works for the district, but he wouldn't elaborate on her status.
Nearly 30 people, black and white, who attended the PTO meeting seemed less interested in the issue than in after-school activities for their children after Curry briefly addressed the allegations, saying that "one person is not reflective of a whole school."
But the child's father, Vandell Gomiller of Coila, attended the meeting hoping to find some answers. "I want to know. Is she suspended? Is she fired?"
Last Thursday, Gomiller's daughter, Mimi, came home and said one of her teachers had called her a "n——" in a classroom full of other students. The child is black, and the teacher is white.
The child said she went into the teacher's classroom at the end of the day Thursday to report that she and another student had to remain with another teacher to finish a math assignment.
"She said I talk like a n——; I act like a n—— and I dress like one," Mimi Gomiller said.
Chris Givens, PTO vice president and the father of two Marshall students, said parents at Marshall have confidence in Curry. "We were pretty sure she was going to handle the situation as best she could."
Givens, an industrial engineer at Milwaukee Electric Tool Co. in Greenwood, said he learned about the situation shortly before the PTO meeting. He said he does not know the teacher's side of the story.
"My personal reaction is that I was astonished at what was being said and I wanted to know the truth," he said. "Kids say things, and you want to know what was said was true. You have go to be professional in regards of what you are doing. If that was said to that kid, it was very unprofessional."
He said making a racial slur "is not tolerated in any workforce that I know of. It should not be tolerated anywhere else, especially in schools."
