‘Radio Silence’: Principal Placed on Leave, Students Fuming After Maryland High School Delays Action Over Shocking Racist Incident Just Months After N-Word Was Printed 1,000 Times
A Maryland high school principal was placed on leave following a recent racist incident that set off a collective call from students to address the anti-Black racism that has afflicted the school for months.
The Montgomery County Public Schools District reported that the N-word was written on a student’s desk at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville on Dec. 3.
However, the incident wasn’t reported to the school community until Dec. 6.
Two of the school’s Black Student Union leaders told MoCo360 that the student whose desk was targeted reported the incident in writing to a teacher. However, the teacher never reported it to school administrators.
The victim’s mother followed up with the school, which triggered an investigation, but it wasn’t until Black student leaders along with several of their peers wrote a letter to the administration and spoke publicly at a pep rally about the incident that officials finally addressed what happened.
“It is now Thursday, December 5th, and the general student body has received nothing but radio silence,” the students’ letter said. “When swastikas are drawn on the art tables, the police are called, the superintendent gives a message, news stations give multiple reports, etc. For every instance, the principal has sent a community message on the day of the incident. Appropriate action cannot only be taken for white and white-adjacent groups.”
A note was sent to the school community on Dec. 6 confirming an “anti-Black, racist hate and bias incident” occurred at the school. Then, school district officials sent an email to parents on Dec. 8 apologizing for the delay in reporting the incident, adding that the response was “not up to our expectations.”
“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,” MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor and Chief of Schools Dr. Peter O Moran wrote in a joint letter to parents. “As a school system, it is our duty and responsibility to provide students with a safe and positive learning environment fostered by educators who demonstrate compassion and care for them daily.”
Wootton Principal Douglas Nelson has been placed on administrative leave and an interim principal will take over his duties for the time being.
The incident comes seven months after another act of racism at the same school in which a student printed the N-word 1,000 times on 1,000 sheets of paper. Black student leaders said the school also put off notifying parents about the act.
Moran stated that the May incident was “further evidence of the need for significant cultural and behavioral change to make Wootton a safe and equitable place for all students and staff to learn and thrive.”
Wootton’s Black students reported that they have tried working with school leadership to address administrators’ inadequate responses to racist incidents for more than a year now.
In 2023, the students sent an action plan to Principal Nelson and the administration with proposed measures to reform the school’s “cultural and societal environment.” This prompted discussions with school leaders but no significant actions, the students said. Black students have also complained to the school board and several schools held anti-racist rallies in October.
“This is an issue that we’ve been working on long before the printer incident in May,” one student told MoCo360. “It feels very frustrating [incidents keep occurring] because it seems like we’ve gone through every avenue, and it reaches a certain point where we don’t know what else there’s to do.”
District officials said they recently met with key student advocates at Wootton who outlined their concerns and strategies to help frame an action plan that will be considered part of a plan the district develops.
“We are increasingly aware of the long-standing harm caused by racism at Wootton, and hearing the experiences shared by students today is an immediate call to action for school-based and central office staff to respond,” Thomas and Moran stated in the letter, adding that “central office staff will work closely with the Wootton staff to engage in ongoing work until Black students and staff say the work has made a meaningful, positive, and permanent difference.”
Wooton administration previously reported that a freshman was responsible for the printer incident and received “appropriate consequences” for the act. School officials said the culprit(s) responsible for the desk graffiti will also be punished.
Since the Dec. 3 incident, the school’s parent-teacher-student association told families in its weekly newsletter that they plan to correspond with the district leadership to plan a meeting with the Wootton community.
MCPS data shows that Wootton High School enrolled more than 1,900 students in its 2022-2023 school year. Of that student population, 38 percent were Asian, 37 percent were white, and 11 percent were Black.