EVERETT – A group of Hispanic students at Everett High School is accusing some administrators and other staff of discrimination and harassment.
“It’s getting worse with every year,” said Franky Medina, 16, a sophomore. “They are always harassing us.”
About a dozen Hispanic students, with the support of parents and a local businessman, filed a complaint with the district in February. A consultant was called in to investigate in April. A draft report is due within days.
Everett High administrators say they cannot discuss the students’ claims while the investigation continues.
“We took it seriously,” said Karst Brandsma, a district assistant superintendent.
Principal Pat Sullivan declined to comment. But he noted the school has a variety of activities and services for Hispanic and other minority and immigrant students, including on-staff translators, student clubs and diversity-focused events, such as a community forum with Russian and Bosnian families.
After seeing the report, the district will decide what action to take, Brandsma said. “All we really want to know is what the truth is and then how to move forward.”
The investigation comes as communities countywide have grappled with race relations.
In the last year, the county has seen two cross burnings and vandalism involving racially offensive graffiti. Monroe High School last fall was marked by a string of incidents, including a Mexican flag torn down and thrown into a bathroom, and a white student expelled for waving a noose at a black classmate.
Like other schools, Everett High has not adapted quickly enough to its changing student population, said Van Dinh-Kuno, executive director of the Refugee and Immigrant Forum of Snohomish County.
“I’ve seen a lot of progress in the last 20 years. But it’s still not quick enough. And I think some of the ‘old-timers’ over there, they haven’t reformed their thinking,” Dinh-Kuno said of Everett High.
Still, the Everett students and their parents believe it should not have gotten this far. Problems have been lingering for months and earlier complaints were not given proper attention, they said.
Their concerns got a boost after a local engineer who mentors some of the boys wrote a letter to district administrators.
“These students are crying out,” Carlos Veliz said.
Veliz, who also serves on the Everett Community College Board of Trustees and on advisory councils to the mayor, said he doubts the district would have taken the students’ complaints seriously if he had not spoken up.
“I’m hoping that this report will be educational, will hold folks accountable for the right reasons and that somebody in the school system will say, ‘You know, we do have a problem, and we need to fix it now,’” he said.
Sitting in one of the family’s living rooms on a recent afternoon, the boys and girls talked about being unfairly singled out for discipline, ignored and monitored without cause.
Medina conceded that some of the boys have been in trouble before for valid reasons.
“It’s not like we’re perfect or anything,” he said. “But we get in trouble once, and they think we’re doing the same things over and over … (They) don’t look at the good stuff you do.”
Medina recalled jumping down from the bleachers at a pep assembly getting ready to end about a month ago. He alleged a teacher “got up in my face and said, ‘Get back up there with your brown friends.’ “
The teen said he reported the insult to an assistant principal who, after talking with the teacher, told Medina the man actually had said “go back to your people” and didn’t mean anything bad by it.
In other cases, Hispanic boys said they were punished while white boys who engaged in the same behavior were not. Amador Soto, 15, a freshman, recalled getting into a fight with a white classmate during gym. He was suspended; the white student was not, he said.
Vicente Barragan, 17, a junior, recalled talking with a white student during English. After class, the teacher said he was going to move Barragan to a different seat.
“So I said a racial comment, just talking to myself: ‘It’s only the Mexicans that get moved,’ ” he said. The teacher suspended him from the class for four days.
Maria Garcia, the boy’s mother, said she was not told of the discipline until a few days later. She requested a meeting with the teacher and principal. The principal did not attend, and she felt the teacher was dismissive.
“They think I don’t understand,” Garcia said through an interpreter. “But I know what they are saying. I want to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
The Hispanic families shared their concerns with the refugee forum, though Dinh-Kuno noted she has not heard the school’s side. Still, too often the school has waited until a student is suspended to call the forum for help, such as translation services. Problems need to be taken care of sooner than “the boiling point,” Dinh-Kuno said.
She said the district should make cultural sensitivity training mandatory for all staff, be more active in communicating with parents and form an advisory body to which immigrant families can go for support.
The district has a diversity committee, which two years ago held sensitivity training, but it has not been active this year.
Veliz, the mentor, said he experienced discrimination against Mexican immigrants such as himself growing up in south Texas in the early 1970s.
“The fact that I’m at the age today and those feelings you experienced as a youth are being brought up by youth to you, it’s not a comforting thing at all,” he said. “I’m not waving a big stick here. I just think we need to find a way to work together.”
Reporter Melissa Slager: 425-339-3465 or mslager@heraldnet.com.
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