Revanche
Registered
Racial tensions grip Canton South
Sunday, August 13, 2006
By Melissa Griffy Seeton REPOSITORY EDUCATION WRITER
Mother of a Dumb Buck at a formerly White School
Repository Bob Rossiter
OVERCOMING The death of Louchandra Peterson’s son, Dorrell, caused school officials to respond to a growing tension between two student populations at Canton Local Schools — longtime, mostly white students and an increasing number of urban students moving into the district. Peterson, a resident of housing development Vienna Woods, is wearing a T-shirt with photos of her son, Dorrell.
Voices from Canton South
CANTON TWP. It may have taken the death of Dorrell Peterson for Canton Local Schools to respond to the racial tension that has been growing in the district for
much of this decade.
At the start of the 2005 school year, students said a “civil war” was about to engulf the district, once a close-knit mix of rural and old suburban areas. The district in recent years has seen an influx of new students drawn by new housing developments. And for some locals, that means city kids and minority kids — and, they fear, trouble.
As a new school year begins, administrators are trying to figure out how to diffuse the tension and change the tone.
“We know we need to adjust our school because of our changing cultural base,” said Superintendent Teresa Purses. “We have to do a better job welcoming students,” she added. New students should arrive “the first day ... as a visitor, but the next day they should be family.”
A NEW START
Dorrell Peterson called Vienna Woods home.
The nearly 100-unit housing project started going up on the east side of Interstate 77 near Mill Street SW in 2000. It offers low- and m
oderate-income people rental homes that they eventually can buy.
The project added about 100 new kids to Canton Local, many from urban areas. And that strained the small district’s resources and introduced a student population the district wasn’t used to.
Dorrell’s mother, Louchandra Peterson, moved to the allotment because she wanted to enroll her children in good schools.
The state says Canton South High School graduates 97 percent of its students. Peterson, a single mom, dropped out of school, though she got her GED while raising four children.
“I didn’t want to bring up my children where there was violence,” said Peterson, who had lived in Cleveland and Canton. “I wanted them to grow up. To set goals. I wanted them to become something.”
Dorrell’s above-average grades sank to average when he entered high school. Despite that, his mother said he still loved school, and basketball was his favorite sport.
“He was a happy kid,R
21; Peterson said. “He always stuck to his word.”
Dorrell also wrote letters to his mother, though they lived in the same home. One of them applauds her for triumphing over obstacles.
THE DEATH OF DORRELL
On Sept. 16, Peterson faced another obstacle she’d have to overcome.
Dorrell’s heart stopped.
He had just finished dinner, playing basketball and lifting weights with his younger brother when he collapsed in the living room. The cause of his death was arteriovenous malformation — a congenital heart disorder.
Dorrell was “her special,” as her other children referred to him; she said he never caused problems. That’s why she was surprised his death fueled a clash between Canton Local’s homegrowns and the district’s new and growing student population from urban areas. (just say Nigger areas - black ghettos - ****ty black Neighborhoods)
“It was about to be a civil war,” expla
ined Antwon Ervin, a black student who was president of South’s senior class last year.
The tension wasn’t obvious at the funeral. More than 300 of Dorrell’s friends — black and white — showed up.
But some students fired off barbed comments, including, “It’s one less (expletive),” and “One down, 99 to go.” To them, Dorrell symbolized an urban student population coming largely from developments such as Vienna Woods.
“Every year at Canton South, there is something that happens that you notice it is a problem,” said Samantha Kramer, a white student who graduated last year. “It’s not everyone, but you do have it.” (The problem is simply the Niggers)
“With Dorrell dying, it was the biggest thing of all,” she said. “There were quite a few fights that were about to go down.”
After the funeral, counselors approached Ervin and Kramer, a friend of Do
rrell’s, to talk to classmates about the comments.
Longtime South teacher Rick Toney said the district supported the Peterson family.
“That’s what the district does — it rallies around its students in need,” he said.
School officials visited the Peterson home where black and white students vented about the growing tension.
“They were scared there was going to be riots” at South and at Faircrest Middle School, Peterson said. But “they were letting the kids get away with saying what they were saying. The kids felt fighting was the only way to stick up for themselves, because the school wasn’t doing anything.”
Superintendent Purses said students were suspended for the derogatory comments.
“It is a misperception for anyone to think we don’t react very strongly and respond to any student who is not treated well,” she said.
old vs. new ... or race?
Ervin moved to Canton Local from Canton City in the fourth grade.
“I never felt excluded,” he said. He played football and basketball in high school, was a member of National Honor Society, and served on the school levy committee. Besides being class president, he won the prestigious Charles “Red” Ash award, named for South’s legendary coach.
But there’s a difference, some grads say, in being black and growing up in Canton South, and being black and moving into the district.
State numbers show Canton South went from 4 percent black students in 2001-02 to double that — 8 percent — in 2004-05.
Toney is starting his 27th year teaching at South. A superintendent asked him to come back to his alma mater because the district needed more minority teachers. Back in the 1980s, Canton Local was the first Stark County district with a black superintendent, Rosemary Johnson, who also was a longtime member of the community.
Toney thinks the district will do what it needs to do to improve race relations.
“There are mor
e African-American students than there were 20 years ago, and that’s fairly new to the district,” said Toney, who coaches eighth-grade basketball. “You experience things that you haven’t had to.” (like TNB?)
But the clash, said Toney, may be more between those who have grown up in the district and those who are new to it.
Catherine Clark has lived in Canton Local for some 35 years; she’s had close to 30 foster children enter the district.
“Children are going to complain,” Clark said. “But children also know when they are being mistreated, and they know when there are discrepancies between black and white.
“Every (black) child that I have had complained” about being called a racial expletive, Clark said.
Then again, she said, she’s housed exchange students from Japan and Sweden who also complained about being isolated.
“Discrimination is not only with color,” she said.
PL
AYING TIME
Canton South’s basketball team is now more than half black, said Ervin, and some of the district’s longtimers “are getting out of their comfort zone.”
Still, Ervin said, he was surprised when head coach Henry Cobb told members of the team last season in the locker room that they could “go back to the city” if they didn’t like how things were at South.
Ervin acknowledged he thought little of it at first. But teammates started asking, “Did he really say that?”
Cobb denied he directed the comment only to black players. He said he made it in front of 27 people before a game after he’d heard complaints about how players dressed, including untucked shirts and wearing earrings. Both violate South’s dress code.
“We have standards, and the kids had showed up to games not dressed and we looked sloppy,” Cobb said. “If I offended somebody when I said that, I am sorry.”
Rocky Bourquin, South’s athle
tic director, wrote the players’ parents the day after a concerned-parents meeting was called in February to discuss the comment. Bourquin said he felt Cobb was “unduly put on display” at the meeting.
In the more than 10 years Bourquin has known Cobb, he said, the coach has paid for South athletes — black and white — who couldn’t afford camp, shoes and clothing.
“I agree that Coach Cobb made a statement that was interpreted to be in poor taste,” Bourquin wrote. But “everyone in the meeting needs to realize that we all make statements that can be judged differently.”
Bourquin said Cobb’s comment referred to the “the city way of life,” such as urban clothes or hair styles. He noted that Cobb is from Akron, and said, “It was not a black-white issue at all. It’s more of a city issue.”
Assistant coach Jeremy Noll, who played basketball under Cobb, insisted “there has never been an issue of black or whi
te with him.”
Bourquin said the coaching staff was targeted because some kids were not getting the playing time their parents thought they deserved.
Michael Bush is among the disgruntled parents.
He’s filed complaints against Canton Local with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, maintaining a student was racially harassed by a teacher and that coaches treated students differently based on race.
Bush maintains the baseball team’s policies forbidding braids singles out black players such as his son, Montel.
He said he got no response from the district to a letter he wrote in May, and he’s rallied other parents.
“We are concerned about all kids — it’s not just the black kids,” he said. “It’s about right and wrong.”
‘CP TIME’
Angel Papai’s 10-year-old daughter wasn’t the only one upset over teacher Judy Ganz’ comment that a student was “moving in CP time
.” The initialdom refers to the stereotype that blacks are often late.
The remark and Ganz’ apology are documented in her personnel file. So are years of accolades for her work with students.
In a letter outlining the situation, Gay Welker, principal of Walker School, said Ganz “openly admitted her mistake and demonstrated a professional response to difficult conversations.”
Ganz, 58, has been teaching in Canton Local for more than a decade. Her file includes commendations and letters from parents whose children she’s helped. Her 1997-98 class completed a project on the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi.
Ganz said her comment “was not intended as a racial slur,” but she acknowledged “it was inappropriate.”
Jeff Wilson, an elder at Living Hope Christian Fellowship, said Ganz goes out of her way to help the black community. “If she’s prejudiced, I wish there were more prejudiced people because she has helped so many bla
ck people,” he said.
But Wilson also said that Canton South’s racial tension is long-standing. “When you have two sets of rules for people, ... it just adds to the tension.”
That tension, he said, magnified the comment Ganz made almost a year ago, and has kept it resurfacing.
Understanding and misunderstanding
Patricia A. Smith and her husband, Abraham Smith Sr., say racial tension at Canton Local is not new, and that members of their family — now in their 40s — experienced it when they were in high school.
People are just more outspoken about perceived racism today, Smith Sr. said.
Twelve years ago, the Stark County NAACP investigated why Canton South told black students they weren’t allowed to sing the black national anthem at Black History Month assembly. It also looked at why some students were permitted to skip the assembly. (What the..?)
With the migration of more Canton City students to Canton Loca
l, diversity will increase, Smith said, and so will the problems unless the district addresses them.
The Rev. Walter S. Moss, pastor of the largely black New Beginnings Foursquare Gospel Church, met with Superintendent Purses and other clergy to talk about the racial issues.
Moss said he was approached by church members with children in Canton Local. “They felt there were a lot of challenges from the teachers and that the teachers just didn’t understand the African-American children.
“A lot of it could be miscommunication or misunderstanding,” he added. “But with the number of African-American families moving into the district and the families with biracial children, it is something the district needs to deal with.”
‘REAL CHANGE TAKES TIME’ (when Niggers are involved)
Since the concerned parents’ meeting in February, Purses has met with her administrative team, set up tutoring in Vienna Woods and plans to
institute diversity training throughout the entire district — from cafeteria workers to administrators. She’s also talked to township trustees about how to improve community relations.“It’s a community issue,” she explained.Purses, who has been superintendent for four years, recognizes the district is a changing one. Canton Local now has the third highest student transient rate in the county behind much larger districts, Canton City and Alliance City.
“We will move heaven and earth to accommodate all students,” she said. “We are on a journey to excellence and real change takes time.”
When the school year begins, she wants to have focus groups and is mapping out teachers’ professional development. She’s met with Vince Watts, executive director of Coming Together Stark County, who has provided a list of recommendations for training and community action.
“I don’t feel it is an issue of outright racism,” said Wa
tts of South’s tension. “But I feel it is a lack of cultural awareness.”
‘GET TO KNOW THEM’
Ryan Gracia, a former South basketball coach now at McKinley High School, said that he doesn’t know if Canton Local can accommodate all the new children moving into the district. He is trying, though, through his work at South overseeing the Cultural Awareness group, whose name he changed from Black Awareness so everyone would feel welcome.
Purses says Gracia’s work is part of the district’s solution.
“I want other students to see exactly what the black culture is, and where we are coming from,” Gracia said. “We need to get to know each other. I don’t care if they are black, white, green or purple, if you want to teach them, you have to get to know them.”
But Dorrell Peterson’s mother continues to wonder as the school year begins: Will the district’s efforts be enough?
“I just w
ant to see them treat the kids all the same,” she said. “We all have to live in this world. The kids are our future now. And they are going to carry (this) for the rest of their life.” (Cry a tear...)
Reach Repository writer Melissa Griffy Seeton at (330) 580-8318 or e-mail: melissa.griffy@cantonrep.com
http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=301960&r=0&Category=9
Sunday, August 13, 2006
By Melissa Griffy Seeton REPOSITORY EDUCATION WRITER
Mother of a Dumb Buck at a formerly White School
Repository Bob Rossiter
OVERCOMING The death of Louchandra Peterson’s son, Dorrell, caused school officials to respond to a growing tension between two student populations at Canton Local Schools — longtime, mostly white students and an increasing number of urban students moving into the district. Peterson, a resident of housing development Vienna Woods, is wearing a T-shirt with photos of her son, Dorrell.
Voices from Canton South
CANTON TWP. It may have taken the death of Dorrell Peterson for Canton Local Schools to respond to the racial tension that has been growing in the district for
much of this decade.
At the start of the 2005 school year, students said a “civil war” was about to engulf the district, once a close-knit mix of rural and old suburban areas. The district in recent years has seen an influx of new students drawn by new housing developments. And for some locals, that means city kids and minority kids — and, they fear, trouble.
As a new school year begins, administrators are trying to figure out how to diffuse the tension and change the tone.
“We know we need to adjust our school because of our changing cultural base,” said Superintendent Teresa Purses. “We have to do a better job welcoming students,” she added. New students should arrive “the first day ... as a visitor, but the next day they should be family.”
A NEW START
Dorrell Peterson called Vienna Woods home.
The nearly 100-unit housing project started going up on the east side of Interstate 77 near Mill Street SW in 2000. It offers low- and m
oderate-income people rental homes that they eventually can buy.
The project added about 100 new kids to Canton Local, many from urban areas. And that strained the small district’s resources and introduced a student population the district wasn’t used to.
Dorrell’s mother, Louchandra Peterson, moved to the allotment because she wanted to enroll her children in good schools.
The state says Canton South High School graduates 97 percent of its students. Peterson, a single mom, dropped out of school, though she got her GED while raising four children.
“I didn’t want to bring up my children where there was violence,” said Peterson, who had lived in Cleveland and Canton. “I wanted them to grow up. To set goals. I wanted them to become something.”
Dorrell’s above-average grades sank to average when he entered high school. Despite that, his mother said he still loved school, and basketball was his favorite sport.
“He was a happy kid,R
21; Peterson said. “He always stuck to his word.”
Dorrell also wrote letters to his mother, though they lived in the same home. One of them applauds her for triumphing over obstacles.
THE DEATH OF DORRELL
On Sept. 16, Peterson faced another obstacle she’d have to overcome.
Dorrell’s heart stopped.
He had just finished dinner, playing basketball and lifting weights with his younger brother when he collapsed in the living room. The cause of his death was arteriovenous malformation — a congenital heart disorder.
Dorrell was “her special,” as her other children referred to him; she said he never caused problems. That’s why she was surprised his death fueled a clash between Canton Local’s homegrowns and the district’s new and growing student population from urban areas. (just say Nigger areas - black ghettos - ****ty black Neighborhoods)
“It was about to be a civil war,” expla
ined Antwon Ervin, a black student who was president of South’s senior class last year.
The tension wasn’t obvious at the funeral. More than 300 of Dorrell’s friends — black and white — showed up.
But some students fired off barbed comments, including, “It’s one less (expletive),” and “One down, 99 to go.” To them, Dorrell symbolized an urban student population coming largely from developments such as Vienna Woods.
“Every year at Canton South, there is something that happens that you notice it is a problem,” said Samantha Kramer, a white student who graduated last year. “It’s not everyone, but you do have it.” (The problem is simply the Niggers)
“With Dorrell dying, it was the biggest thing of all,” she said. “There were quite a few fights that were about to go down.”
After the funeral, counselors approached Ervin and Kramer, a friend of Do
rrell’s, to talk to classmates about the comments.
Longtime South teacher Rick Toney said the district supported the Peterson family.
“That’s what the district does — it rallies around its students in need,” he said.
School officials visited the Peterson home where black and white students vented about the growing tension.
“They were scared there was going to be riots” at South and at Faircrest Middle School, Peterson said. But “they were letting the kids get away with saying what they were saying. The kids felt fighting was the only way to stick up for themselves, because the school wasn’t doing anything.”
Superintendent Purses said students were suspended for the derogatory comments.
“It is a misperception for anyone to think we don’t react very strongly and respond to any student who is not treated well,” she said.
old vs. new ... or race?
Ervin moved to Canton Local from Canton City in the fourth grade.
“I never felt excluded,” he said. He played football and basketball in high school, was a member of National Honor Society, and served on the school levy committee. Besides being class president, he won the prestigious Charles “Red” Ash award, named for South’s legendary coach.
But there’s a difference, some grads say, in being black and growing up in Canton South, and being black and moving into the district.
State numbers show Canton South went from 4 percent black students in 2001-02 to double that — 8 percent — in 2004-05.
Toney is starting his 27th year teaching at South. A superintendent asked him to come back to his alma mater because the district needed more minority teachers. Back in the 1980s, Canton Local was the first Stark County district with a black superintendent, Rosemary Johnson, who also was a longtime member of the community.
Toney thinks the district will do what it needs to do to improve race relations.
“There are mor
e African-American students than there were 20 years ago, and that’s fairly new to the district,” said Toney, who coaches eighth-grade basketball. “You experience things that you haven’t had to.” (like TNB?)
But the clash, said Toney, may be more between those who have grown up in the district and those who are new to it.
Catherine Clark has lived in Canton Local for some 35 years; she’s had close to 30 foster children enter the district.
“Children are going to complain,” Clark said. “But children also know when they are being mistreated, and they know when there are discrepancies between black and white.
“Every (black) child that I have had complained” about being called a racial expletive, Clark said.
Then again, she said, she’s housed exchange students from Japan and Sweden who also complained about being isolated.
“Discrimination is not only with color,” she said.
PL
AYING TIME
Canton South’s basketball team is now more than half black, said Ervin, and some of the district’s longtimers “are getting out of their comfort zone.”
Still, Ervin said, he was surprised when head coach Henry Cobb told members of the team last season in the locker room that they could “go back to the city” if they didn’t like how things were at South.
Ervin acknowledged he thought little of it at first. But teammates started asking, “Did he really say that?”
Cobb denied he directed the comment only to black players. He said he made it in front of 27 people before a game after he’d heard complaints about how players dressed, including untucked shirts and wearing earrings. Both violate South’s dress code.
“We have standards, and the kids had showed up to games not dressed and we looked sloppy,” Cobb said. “If I offended somebody when I said that, I am sorry.”
Rocky Bourquin, South’s athle
tic director, wrote the players’ parents the day after a concerned-parents meeting was called in February to discuss the comment. Bourquin said he felt Cobb was “unduly put on display” at the meeting.
In the more than 10 years Bourquin has known Cobb, he said, the coach has paid for South athletes — black and white — who couldn’t afford camp, shoes and clothing.
“I agree that Coach Cobb made a statement that was interpreted to be in poor taste,” Bourquin wrote. But “everyone in the meeting needs to realize that we all make statements that can be judged differently.”
Bourquin said Cobb’s comment referred to the “the city way of life,” such as urban clothes or hair styles. He noted that Cobb is from Akron, and said, “It was not a black-white issue at all. It’s more of a city issue.”
Assistant coach Jeremy Noll, who played basketball under Cobb, insisted “there has never been an issue of black or whi
te with him.”
Bourquin said the coaching staff was targeted because some kids were not getting the playing time their parents thought they deserved.
Michael Bush is among the disgruntled parents.
He’s filed complaints against Canton Local with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, maintaining a student was racially harassed by a teacher and that coaches treated students differently based on race.
Bush maintains the baseball team’s policies forbidding braids singles out black players such as his son, Montel.
He said he got no response from the district to a letter he wrote in May, and he’s rallied other parents.
“We are concerned about all kids — it’s not just the black kids,” he said. “It’s about right and wrong.”
‘CP TIME’
Angel Papai’s 10-year-old daughter wasn’t the only one upset over teacher Judy Ganz’ comment that a student was “moving in CP time
.” The initialdom refers to the stereotype that blacks are often late.
The remark and Ganz’ apology are documented in her personnel file. So are years of accolades for her work with students.
In a letter outlining the situation, Gay Welker, principal of Walker School, said Ganz “openly admitted her mistake and demonstrated a professional response to difficult conversations.”
Ganz, 58, has been teaching in Canton Local for more than a decade. Her file includes commendations and letters from parents whose children she’s helped. Her 1997-98 class completed a project on the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi.
Ganz said her comment “was not intended as a racial slur,” but she acknowledged “it was inappropriate.”
Jeff Wilson, an elder at Living Hope Christian Fellowship, said Ganz goes out of her way to help the black community. “If she’s prejudiced, I wish there were more prejudiced people because she has helped so many bla
ck people,” he said.
But Wilson also said that Canton South’s racial tension is long-standing. “When you have two sets of rules for people, ... it just adds to the tension.”
That tension, he said, magnified the comment Ganz made almost a year ago, and has kept it resurfacing.
Understanding and misunderstanding
Patricia A. Smith and her husband, Abraham Smith Sr., say racial tension at Canton Local is not new, and that members of their family — now in their 40s — experienced it when they were in high school.
People are just more outspoken about perceived racism today, Smith Sr. said.
Twelve years ago, the Stark County NAACP investigated why Canton South told black students they weren’t allowed to sing the black national anthem at Black History Month assembly. It also looked at why some students were permitted to skip the assembly. (What the..?)
With the migration of more Canton City students to Canton Loca
l, diversity will increase, Smith said, and so will the problems unless the district addresses them.
The Rev. Walter S. Moss, pastor of the largely black New Beginnings Foursquare Gospel Church, met with Superintendent Purses and other clergy to talk about the racial issues.
Moss said he was approached by church members with children in Canton Local. “They felt there were a lot of challenges from the teachers and that the teachers just didn’t understand the African-American children.
“A lot of it could be miscommunication or misunderstanding,” he added. “But with the number of African-American families moving into the district and the families with biracial children, it is something the district needs to deal with.”
‘REAL CHANGE TAKES TIME’ (when Niggers are involved)
Since the concerned parents’ meeting in February, Purses has met with her administrative team, set up tutoring in Vienna Woods and plans to
institute diversity training throughout the entire district — from cafeteria workers to administrators. She’s also talked to township trustees about how to improve community relations.“It’s a community issue,” she explained.Purses, who has been superintendent for four years, recognizes the district is a changing one. Canton Local now has the third highest student transient rate in the county behind much larger districts, Canton City and Alliance City.
“We will move heaven and earth to accommodate all students,” she said. “We are on a journey to excellence and real change takes time.”
When the school year begins, she wants to have focus groups and is mapping out teachers’ professional development. She’s met with Vince Watts, executive director of Coming Together Stark County, who has provided a list of recommendations for training and community action.
“I don’t feel it is an issue of outright racism,” said Wa
tts of South’s tension. “But I feel it is a lack of cultural awareness.”
‘GET TO KNOW THEM’
Ryan Gracia, a former South basketball coach now at McKinley High School, said that he doesn’t know if Canton Local can accommodate all the new children moving into the district. He is trying, though, through his work at South overseeing the Cultural Awareness group, whose name he changed from Black Awareness so everyone would feel welcome.
Purses says Gracia’s work is part of the district’s solution.
“I want other students to see exactly what the black culture is, and where we are coming from,” Gracia said. “We need to get to know each other. I don’t care if they are black, white, green or purple, if you want to teach them, you have to get to know them.”
But Dorrell Peterson’s mother continues to wonder as the school year begins: Will the district’s efforts be enough?
“I just w
ant to see them treat the kids all the same,” she said. “We all have to live in this world. The kids are our future now. And they are going to carry (this) for the rest of their life.” (Cry a tear...)
Reach Repository writer Melissa Griffy Seeton at (330) 580-8318 or e-mail: melissa.griffy@cantonrep.com
http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=301960&r=0&Category=9
