UPDATED 1/12/18 11:32 a.m. ET: USA Today reports that the school district will require the teacher, Renee Thole, to attend cultural training. A formal letter of reprimand was added to her personal file on Thursday, but Thole will not be suspended or fired for her remarks.
"This is a serious miss on her part," said district spokeswoman Tracey Carson. "There's nothing that could be done that would ever take back those words. And so, the next piece is trying to really determine what is the right recourse that offers restitution for the family and also sets expectations for the staff member."
Agee-Bell has expressed her frustration with the school board's decision. "That’s not a clear punishment," she said. "That’s not satisfactory at all. I still want her out of the classroom until she gets that training."
See below for original story published on 1/11/18.
Another day, another racist fuckhead spreading their ignorance around. Let's get right to it. A white teacher at Mason Middle School in Ohio told a 13-year-old black boy he would be lynched if he didn't stop talking and get back to his schoolwork. Yes. You read that correctly.
According to News 5 Cleveland, the ridiculously offensive statement was made in front of other students in class in December. Mason Schools spokeswoman Tracey Carson confirmed to the Cincinnati Enquirer that teacher Renee Thole was the shitty individual who threatened a child with racist murder.
"As educators, sometimes we mess up," Carson said. "And clearly that happened here."
The spokeswoman didn't specify whether the teacher was disciplined or not, but said the district "investigated, documented, and set expectations for (the) future," per the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Tanisha Agee-Bell, the boy's mother, admits her son is a talker and something of a class clown, but rightly insists the teacher went overboard. When Agee-Bell later spoke with Thole, the teacher admitted to telling her son that his friends in the largely white class would form an angry mob and lynch him if he didn't improve his focus. "I told her, 'Next time you're frustrated, are you going to call him a n***er?'" Agee-Bell said.
Agee-Bell has since had her son removed from Thole's class. While she's thought about pulling her kids from the Mason school district entirely, she ultimately chose to stay and improve its racism issues, as she's been a member of the district's diversity council for more than a decade. Godspeed to you, girl. You've got a lot of work ahead of you.
