<p>This is an important issue for our family even though we are white. We simply don’t want (and our children wouldn’t be comfortable at) a school that wasn’t accepting of “otherness”, whether it be religious, racial, ethnic, political or sexual otherness.</p>
<p>Another important point is that the perpetrator was never found. It could have been any crazy person with a grudge against the school, hoping for the school to suffer this kind of bad publicity. Another New England school had a similar situation (I won’t even sully its name as it was not the school’s fault), and the perpetrator was found- it was an emotionally troubled freshman student of color! The student, who had only been there for a couple of weeks, was promptly sent home.</p>
<p>As an Africa-American parent, </p>
<p>Though this issue is sad, it happens much more than most people think, most places keep it hush hush. </p>
<p>In the urban city where we reside, I am just as concerned when there are certain minorities are together in large groups. It doesn’t have to be just the black kids being singled out.</p>
<p>My d is classified in our school district as “gifted” and non-gifted kids of all colors have picked on her–even other black children.</p>
<p>As an adult who is black, female and a 2 has science degrees, I have struggled with discrimination since I was in high school. </p>
<p>Not that it is easy, but most of us raise our kids with this understanding, “everyone will not see past your color”, get over it and move on past it.</p>
<p>If we avoided every place that didn’t want blacks at one time or other, we would have no where to go. </p>
<p>I have a strong belief that a place like SPS took this situation as a “teachable moment”. And even though my d doesn’t go there I did not allow her to apply to any school where i was not comfortable.</p>
<p>p.s.-at every school I asked the “tough” questions, questions that most non-black parents even think of</p>
<p>guys im sorry but i just thought it was an important piece of info that was regarding a place many people hear are applying too. i did not see all the trouble in just posting this link for people to read
and to say i think sps did a fine job of handling the situation</p>
<p>Most of the top prep schools are far more diverse than a typical suburban school district. We found that Andover is not merely accepting of diversity, but strongly encourages respect for the unique perspectives and experiences each group (or, for that matter, each individual) brings to the table. I suspect other schools are similar. Thank you to Winterset for those videos of a student revealing his sexuality to overwhelming support. If only every community could be that caring. </p>
<p>Remember, acts of hatred only require a few sick individuals and thus can happen anywhere. It is the strength and sincerity of the response from the broader community that can turn a bad situation into a positive and establish clearly that such events will not be tolerated in the future.</p>
<p>Well said Parlabane.</p>
<p>Remember,</p>
<p>Bad things happen, when good people do nothing.</p>
<p>I have no personal knowledge of or connection to St. Paul’s, but, IMHO, this post is nothing short of an unwarranted attempt to do harm to its reputation. The title is inflammatory but, much worse, the story is old and irrelevant news, as far as I can tell. I think the post is, at best, very poor judgment, and at worst, a shameful attempt to harm the school’s repuration with its target audience.</p>