By Kaya Do-Khanh | Special to The OBSERVER
Erinn Leone’s alarms went off when she walked into a staff meeting and a teacher repeatedly used racial slurs when recalling an altercation with a student.
In February 2020, during her first year teaching at Luther Burbank High School, Leone came into a training session when another teacher abruptly stood and said she needed to vent about an incident with a student that happened during the class period before the meeting.
The teacher said that as a student walked past her classroom’s propped open door, he said, “What’s up, [n-word]?”
The teacher, who is not Black, was visibly angry and upset as she addressed the other teachers in the meeting. “What right does he have to say this to me?” she said. “So I tell him, ‘No, that’s what you are.’”
Leone was shocked by the teacher’s use of the racial slur. “What right do you have to tell a student that?” she asked.
Leone’s question was met with responses from “I don’t think that’s what she meant” to “I don’t think that’s what she was saying.” When the teacher retold the story while repeatedly using the slur, a colleague turned to Leone and asked if she was OK.
Leone, 34, who attended Sacramento Unified School District schools, said that as a student she did not have experiences with racism as overt compared to what she has witnessed as a teacher.
That incident is among several at Luther Burbank that have triggered a strong reaction.
“As a student, I always knew that there were issues with the education system, but I think becoming a teacher really shed light on the real issues within the public education system,” Leone said. “There is a pervasive culture of racism in our entire school district.”
The Sacramento Bee reported July 10 that a biology final that included racist questions and directly named Burbank students was distributed at the school this past semester. One question suggested there was a dominant “gene for the pimp walk” and the recessive trait was identified as walking “normally.”
That evening, principal Jim Peterson emailed the parents and guardians of students who received the exam. “Regardless of the intent behind them, the words that were chosen are not reflective of the safe, welcoming, and inclusive atmosphere we work to foster at LBHS,” it read in part.
The teacher who distributed the final had taught biology at the school for at least 10 years and was put on administrative leave after the incident.
“We often don’t know what’s happening in these classrooms,” Leone told The OBSERVER. “No one knew that this was happening. There’s talk that this final has been given [before], just the names were different on it.”
Leone said the incident she witnessed left her in tears and feeling powerless, angry and shocked.
“I didn’t feel safe at that moment as I was looking around the room, and it didn’t seem like anybody else was having a strong reaction to it the same way that I was,” Leone said.
A restorative circle, a conflict resolution method that focuses on dialogue, was held the day following the staff training session incident. But Leone said the teacher involved was not present and that colleagues in the meeting seemed to excuse the issue rather than condemn it. “What the circle became was really just people recounting what happened,” she said.
Another restorative circle, this time consisting only of Leone and the teacher involved in the incident with the student, was arranged before school was scheduled to restart. The session, however, was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never rescheduled.
“I was harmed by this, but I’m not the only person who was harmed by it,” Leone said. “There was a classroom full of students who heard the teacher’s remarks toward the student. There was an entire cohort of teachers who were present who heard it.”
Leone said she reached out to district leadership for support, but the issue was left ignored.
“That teacher, to this day, never had to acknowledge or admit that she had done something wrong,” Leone said.
Alexander Goldberg, communications manager for the Sacramento City Unified School District, said in an email that the incident was a personnel matter and that the district cannot comment.
Of the incident with the racist test, Goldberg wrote that the district “has zero tolerance for the use of language that is racist or perpetuates the use of racial stereotypes.”
“SCUSD has been working diligently to eradicate racism from all of our schools and facilities,” Goldberg wrote to The OBSERVER. He cited district policy of mandatory antiracist and anti-bias training for district staff and the appointment of an independent monitor of its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
“This work will continue in earnest as we seek to make every Sacramento City Unified school a safe, welcoming and inclusive center of learning for all,” Goldberg wrote.
Leone said the incidents at Luther Burbank are not unique to the school. An alliance of antiracist educators in the district are making efforts to get SCUSD to adopt a policy proposal for accountability and restorative justice.
“What’s unique about Burbank is that we do have a number of teachers who are committed to antiracism,” Leone said. “We have a number of really courageous teachers who are willing to speak up and to call things out and to shed light on some of the things that are happening.”
She said both incidents at Luther Burbank should have been fully investigated, with all involved parties heard and a process that concluded with accountability and restorative justice to repair harm.
Darryl White, chairperson for the Black Parallel School Board, agreed. White, a retired SCUSD principal, has been on the BPSB executive board since 2007. He became involved with the organization, which supports and advocates for Black students, after his son encountered issues with the administration in middle school.
SCUSD teachers complete implicit bias training, but White said the issue with such module training is that there is no way to see where a teacher may be lacking or the pace in which they go through the modules.
“We make too many assumptions when we hire teachers,” White said. “We assume that they have all of the race and human relations knowledge necessary to treat kids equitably.”
After the incidents were made public, Leone said several district teachers relayed similar experiences to her.
“Now, nobody wants to bring any of this to the forefront because they think that they’re going to get fired, they think they’re going to get shut down,” White said. “The takeaway is that we still have so much more work to do, and I think we need to look at it differently so that we can be much more restorative in our response to issues like this.”
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Support for this Sacramento OBSERVER article was provided to Word In Black (WIB) by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. WIB is a collaborative of 10 Black-owned media that includes print and digital partners.