The principal of a high school in Montgomery County, Maryland, is on leave after officials say the school delayed reporting an act of racism at the school and then another incident that same week.
Someone wrote a racial slur on the desk of a Black student on Monday, Dec. 3 at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, Montgomery County Public Schools' head of school support and improvement Peter Moran said in a letter to families on Friday, days after the incident.
"The delay in the reporting and response to this incident only caused further harm to the Black students, staff, and community and left feelings of being unwelcome and unsafe, and that Wootton is not a school where they have a sense of belonging," Moran said in the letter.
Then on Monday, MCPS told families they’re investigating another incident days later after a substitute allegedly used the n-word to describe what happened earlier in the week.
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Principal Douglas Nelson was put on administrative leave, Montgomery County Public Schools spokesperson Liliana López confirmed to News4 on Tuesday. López said she could not give any further comment about Nelson's leave.
"As district wide school leaders, the response was not up to our expectations, and we need to do better," Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Taylor and Moran said in a joint letter to the Wootton community on Sunday.
Taylor and Moran said the student or students responsible for the racist message would face consequences laid out in the school system's code of conduct.
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Students, staff and others in the community pleaded Friday for MCPS to take concrete steps to end hate at Wootton and throughout the district, Taylor and Moran said.
The officials said in their letter they planned to do the following:
- Provide mental health and support, including having crisis counselors, and school psychologists on hand at Wootton High School to help anyone in need
- Train staff at the school to "enhance our response to hate and bias incidents"
- Host a community dialogue session to engage caregivers, students and others in the Wootton community
"We recognize that our response to this incident harmed many of you, and we look forward to this upcoming discussion. We deeply appreciate the voices of our Black students and the community, who have shared their concerns and expectations and offered thoughtful strategies to combat racism and foster progress," Taylor and Moran said.
Joseph Bostic, an assistant principal at Northwood High School, will be the acting principal for Wootton High School during Nelson's absence, Moran said in a letter to the Wootton community on Tuesday. Bostic was named MCPS Teacher of the Year in 2021.
Parents weigh in
Wootton High School parents reacted to the incident on Tuesday as well as the staffing shake up.
“I think it’s reinforcing bad behavior and if it’s not corrected,” said MCPS parent Rob Duffy. “I think it reflects poorly on the institution, the county, the school, the leadership.”
“I think it’s pretty appalling that this type of behavior still happens in today’s world,” said parent Naureen Alam.
Another parent did not support the decision.
“To me it just seems like the principal is being used as a scapegoat,” said Wootton parent Lisa Famulari. “You know, obviously there is a problem here that they need to handle, these things can’t keep happening, but to put the blame on the principal, who, in my opinion, has done nothing but support these kids and been a great principal, it’s not right.”
'They just want to be students like everybody else'
“Follow your own protocol, MCPS. That’s what we want them to do,” said Wylena Chase with the Black and Brown Coalition for Educational Equity and Excellence. “It’s all outlined here.”
Advocates like Chase are sounding the alarm. She's a member of the MCPS Hate Bias Advisory Group, and she’s calling on the school district to use the tools they already have.
“This was just one incident in a long line of anti-Black incidents that have been occurring at Wootton High School,” she said.
Chase says an MCPS teacher told her about the incident last Thursday — the same day a group of students alerted the school district. She doesn't know why the principal wasn't more proactive, but she says the slow response puts too much pressure on those teens.
“They have been charged with finding the solution to a problem that they did not create,” Chase said. “They just want to be students like everybody else.”
