Park Hill leader: District hiring expert to fight racism after pro-slavery petition

The Park Hill school district will hire an expert to help create a “plan of action” to combat racism, after students circulated a petition calling for the return of slavery, officials said.

In a video message on Monday, Superintendent Jeanette Cowherd said after years of working to improve “culturally relevant education, access and inclusion,” the recent incident has “made it clear that we must speed up our efforts.”

Students at Park Hill South High School circulated the racist petition online earlier this month. District officials shared few specifics about the petition, referring to it as a “discipline incident.” It is still unclear how many students were involved or the details of what transpired.

Last week, several parents and community members spoke at the Park Hill school board meeting, calling for officials to take action and protect their children. Several families of color have said they worry their children could be in danger at school.

After the public comment portion ended, some members of the crowd continued to voice their demands, shouting over school board members as they tried to conduct the rest of the meeting, arguing that such an incident requires urgent attention.

In Monday’s video message, Cowherd said the district’s immediate response was “to identify the students involved in this matter, and to follow our board policies and state statutes in the discipline for this incident. We are also providing counselors to support and care for students who have been hurt by this.”

She continued, “Going forward, we have two options. We can react or we can respond. We are choosing to respond, to produce a long-term solution that best meets the needs of our students, our staff, our families and our community.”

Cowherd said the district is listening to the community, “to fully understand their experiences, to gain a deeper understanding of the problem and to set aside our own assumptions.”

Spokeswoman Nicole Kirby said officials are interviewing local experts and will hire someone to advise the district. She said information gathered from the community and experts will help the district “develop a plan of action for Park Hill.”

“We will face this challenge ahead of us head on, and we appreciate the support of our community as we work to make our schools safe and welcoming for each member of our Park Hill district family,” Cowherd said.

It is only one racist incident among several that have plagued Kansas City area schools in recent months.

Last year, Park Hill South Principal Kerrie Herren told members of the volleyball team to take off warm-up T-shirts that said “Together we rise.” The shirts were a symbol of racial equity and inclusion. Herren later apologized.

After the racist petition was circulated this month, Herren said in a statement to students, “We are outraged, hurt and saddened that this occurred.”

In Johnson County over the weekend, a photo circulated of a white male Olathe South High School student asking a white female St. James Academy student to homecoming using a racist sign, sparking outrage. The sign read: “If I was Black I would be picking cotton but I’m white so I’m picking you for HOCO.”

Officials with both schools said they are investigating.

In July, the Lee’s Summit school board reinstated a teacher and coach, going against the superintendent’s recommendation that he be terminated. While filing a disciplinary report, the teacher repeated a racial slur to a student, whom he was writing up for using the slur.

Around the same time, a Harrisonville High School science teacher was fired by the school board after he was accused of making several inappropriate and racist comments.

This past spring, the Olathe school board unanimously agreed to fire Olathe North High School’s head baseball coach Pete Flood after he allegedly used a racial slur toward a Black player.

The latest acts of racism occurred as schools face debates over how to teach students about slavery and racism in American history. Some parents have scrutinized the academic concept known as critical race theory, even though it is not taught in Kansas and Missouri K-12 schools.

Critical race theory, which examines the role of American institutions in perpetuating racial inequality, has become a catch-all term for schools’ teachings on race, diversity and equity and the target of some parents and conservative politicians who say the concept itself perpetuates racism and division.

At school board meetings throughout the Kansas City metro this summer, a vocal minority of parents fought against any and all diversity and equity initiatives.

Others have said that the recent incidents in schools emphasize the need for accurate, nuanced and thorough teaching on the history of race and institutional racism.

“With another racism scandal at an area school each week, it is abundantly clear that rather than removing race from education and marginalizing the history of all people in our region, we need critically to empower our students to fight and call out racism,” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas wrote on Twitter.