GHETTO BLACK AMERICA - VIOLENCE AND MAYHEM

St. Paul School District to Pay $525K to Teacher Who Criticized Racial Equity Discipline

For Kids & Country

DR. SUSAN BERRY

24 Sep 201996

2:33

The St. Paul, Minnesota, school district has agreed to pay $525,000 to a former teacher who said he was retaliated against because he openly criticized the district for failing black students with its lax discipline policies that did not hold them accountable for disruptive behavior.

Aaron Benner, 50, currently an administrator at Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul, filed a federal lawsuit in 2017, arguing the district retaliated against him by investigating him four times during the 2014-2015 school year, reported the Star Tribune.

Benner, however, had never been investigated prior to that school year, when he and four other teachers pressed the school board for higher standards of behavior for students and greater consequences for those who are disruptive, regardless of their minority status.

Benner, who is black, said the school district’s discipline policies, based on a desire to reduce racial disparities, had actually failed black students by not teaching them there are consequences for disruptive behavior.

Teacher Rebecca Friedrichs’ organization, For Kids & Country, produced a video in which Benner told his story, specifically about how he felt betrayed by his teacher’s union.

Friedrichs, the author of  Standing Up to Goliath: Battling State and National Teachers’ Unions for the Heart and Soul of Our Kids and Country, was the plaintiff in the 2016 Supreme Court case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, in which she and another teacher claimed a First Amendment right to withhold financial support from a union whose positions they did not share.

He continued that while he had no problem paying union dues, he was concerned about “racial equity policies that were being implemented to lower the suspensions of African-American students.”

Benner said he ultimately became aware that his union negotiated for the new equity policies. When he began to be charged with infractions, he said he waited for an entire year before his union representative asked him “to plead to an infraction she knew” he had not committed.

Additionally, Benner said his union representative told him the union president would be “forced” to write a statement against him.

It was then that he took his story to national television and began to speak out about the school district’s race-based discipline policies.

A recent court ruling allowed Benner to seek punitive damages when the case went to trial.

Additionally, U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson said Benner “presented a credible case for race discrimination and for being retaliated against for speaking out against a policy he believed to be illegal,” reported the Tribune.

Seven Teens Accused of Fatally Stabbing Long Island Student on Camera

Keyanna Morris

KATHERINE RODRIGUEZ

28 Sep 2019280

1:36

Police arrested seven teenagers, accusing them of fatally stabbing a Long Island student while filming the encounter.

The suspects — Haakim Mechan, 19; Marquis Stephens, 18; Javonte Neals, 18; Taj Woodruff, 17; Sean Merritt, 17; and two younger teens who remain unnamed — all face gang assault charges in the slaying, according to the New York Post.

The arrests are in connection with the death of 16-year-old Khaseen Morris, the Long Island student who was brutally stabbed at a strip mall while his fellow students recorded the encounter on their cell phones.

Morris was stabbed once in the chest near a strip mall by Oceanside High School after the group of teens attacked him over a girl on September 16.

Police said Morris knew the ex-boyfriend of a girl he walked home from a party with was after him. As Morris lay suffering from the stab wound, his fellow teens pulled out their cell phones instead of helping him.

“Kids stood there and didn’t help Khaseen,” Detective Lt. Stephen Fitzpatrick told reporters, according to Newsday. “They’d rather video. They videoed his death instead of helping him.”

Police also arrested one other person in connection with the attack — Tyler Flach, 18, of Lido Beach, and accused him of murder.

After the attack, authorities said they were searching for additional teens involved in the melee by interviewing witnesses and reviewing posts made on social media.

VIDEO: Denver Mother Brawls with School Bus Employee

KATHERINE RODRIGUEZ

28 Sep 2019567

1:50

A Denver mother is facing charges after she allegedly attacked a school bus employee who would not let her child off the school bus on Wednesday.

A video of the incident from CBS Denver shows parents gathering around the back of the bus while the employee and the mother engage in a brawl. Middle school children could be heard screaming in the background.

Police arrested the parent, Brandi Martin, for third-degree assault of an at-risk adult because the person she allegedly hit was over 70 years old, KDVR reported.

But Martin and other parents who were there say she acted out of self-defense. The Denver Police Department’s probable cause statement says the driver told police he pulled over the bus and did not let anyone off because the kids were acting “unruly.”

Parents in the area say the driver would not let any kids off the bus.

It was “pretty terrifying seeing my daughter being held against her will and not being able to get to her,” Martin said of the incident.

“What hurts me the most are the screams. I can hear them in my dreams,” she told the Denver Channel.

Denver Public Schools was alerted to the incident late on Wednesday and launched an investigation into the incident on Thursday. The school said one of the two employees suffered a broken nose and was taken to a hospital.

Both the driver and the paraprofessional aboard the bus were placed on administrative leave as of Monday.

The school district said the school bus employees should have handled the situation differently.

“It’s clear that was not handled to the expectations we have. It is important as a district that when kids are in our care that they feel safe and cared for and unfortunately that did not happen in this situation,” said Mark Ferrandino, the deputy superintendent of operations.