Since December, several people have been demanding the removal of Ohio middle school teacher Renee Thole for telling a 13-year-old student that if he didn't get back on task, his friends would "form an angry mob, and lynch him.” Recently, Mason City Schools, the district that encompasses Mason Middle School where the incident occurred, announced their decision: Rather than suspending Thole, they would require her to go through cultural training. Understandably, the boy's mom, Tanisha Agee-Bell, is outraged, the Cincinatti Enquirer reports.
“What we’ve seen in Mason with regards to race is that the District is ill-equipped to deal with these issues and refuse to acknowledge that they exist,” Agee-Bell said.
The mom recognized that son Nathan was probably talking before the teacher issued her controversial reply, but many supporters on social media argue that there is no excuse for casual racism and threats. Agee-Bell explained that the main issue was not only what Thole said but also that the middle school teacher failed to recognize how problematic her remarks were. She ignored this country’s long history of abuse to the black community because of racism, slavery and lynching. “For her not to understand that the words that she said were a direct pull from what has been, what was a practice in the United States, is unacceptable,” Agee-Bell told WLWT5.
Although the teacher stated that she didn't mean to offend anyone, her lack of awareness is alarming. Thole wrote that right after she said that, Nathan confronted her and called her remark racist and she apologized to him.
A week after the remark was made the teacher made a public apology. This is what Thole said according to her incident summary:
“Today is a day where we can learn the importance of thinking before you speak. I made a comment the other day where I didn’t stop and think before I spoke. As a result of that I deeply hurt a student and I regret that. Just because I never meant to hurt anyone doesn’t mean that didn’t happen, so Nathan, I’m sorry. If I had just taken two seconds to think before I used the world lynch, I would have not hurt a student. I didn’t think about all of the ugliness and horrible history surrounding that word before I used it. Nathan, I am deeply sorry and I hope that you can forgive me.”
"There's nothing that could be done that would ever take back those words," said District Spokesman Tracey Carson. She also said that teachers sometimes “mess up” and that the district will “really determine what is the right recourse that offers restitution for the family and also sets expectations for the staff member."
However, the actions taken by the district seemed to be unsatisfactory for Agee-Bell and for hundreds of people all over social media. "That’s not a clear punishment. That’s not satisfactory at all,” the mom told The Cincinatti Enquirer. She told WLWT5 that she doesn’t think that Thole should ever be able to teach again, “but until she can demonstrate that she understands what the impact of the language that she used and what she did can have, has had on my son, has on his peers and is having on our community, then she doesn’t need to be in the classroom.”
A Change.org petition urging the school to fire the teacher has collected over 1,000 signatures, and people all over social media are supporting Nathan and his mom stating that racism has no place in education or anywhere else.
The Superintendent of Mason City Schools Gail Kist-Kline issued a letter addressing the issue, writing: "We have seen an uptick in the number of racially and culturally insensitive comments in our schools and community ... Sometimes these are said out of genuine ignorance." Mason Middle School has a predominantly white student body; in 2016 only 4 percent of students identified as black according to the Ohio Department of Education data.
“We have to stand up when things are wrong,” Agee-Bell said. “We have to say it’s wrong. And if we don’t, then we’re doing not only ourselves a disservice, we’re doing our entire generation a disservice.”