Mother of Afro-Indigenous student stunned after teacher uses N-word in Grant Park English class

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This article was published 01/03/2022 (1650 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A mother at Grant Park High School says she is in disbelief after learning that a substitute teacher enunciated a racial slur in its entirety during a lesson on the final day of Black History Month.

“How can you be so ignorant in this day and age?” said Melanie Ferris, whose teenage son is enrolled in Grade 11.

“I just can’t really wrap my head around the fact that this is still happening. It makes me wonder: How many Black substitutes do we have? Do we have any diversity in terms of teaching staff?”

Ferris said she and her son, who is Afro-Indigenous, were talking at home over the lunch-hour on Tuesday when he mentioned that one day earlier a substitute teacher had said the N-word to a room full of students in his English class.

The derogatory term was mentioned during a class in which a documentary about Black history was being screened, she said, noting that her son recalled students immediately scolded the teacher, started messaging each other about the incident and laughed about the situation in shared shock.

Ferris said her son, whom she described as “a comedian,” was later told he would be “written up” for acting out. “The (substitute teacher) said to them: I don’t get paid enough to deal with this,” she added.

In an email Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Winnipeg School Division indicated administrators are aware of the situation and an internal review process is underway.

After Ferris was made aware of the incident, the Winnipeg mother said she asked her son for permission to contact his principal to raise concerns.

“(The principal) was very reassuring. He said that he was disgusted and appalled. He said he contacted HR. He wants to ensure that this sub doesn’t work in the building again,” she said.

Ferris said the school leader also reassured her that he would speak to her son’s class and relay the above information. While she said she feels supported by the response, she is disappointed, because the incident will likely have a lasting impact on students of colour.

This is at least the third time in the 2021-2022 academic year that an educator working at a public school in Manitoba has voiced the N-word out loud to a classroom full of students.

The Manitoba Teachers’ Society did not provide comment on the most recent event, referring to it as a personnel matter.

Earlier incidents occurred at Collège Louis-Riel in the Division scolaire franco-manitobaine and Niverville High School in Manitoba’s Hanover district.

Respective school division leaders announced the educators involved in the separate incidents would be placed on leave temporarily during investigations.

The Oct. 14 incident at a francophone high school in St. Boniface prompted a heated debate during a class and later, a physical altercation between two students.

DSFM announced in the wake of the events that it would be launching a diversity, inclusion and anti-racism plan in an effort to rebuild the trust of families who were harmed by the high school teacher’s use of a derogatory slur.

All three incidents involved white teachers.

Ferris’s son has only ever had a single Indigenous teacher throughout his public school career, to his mother’s knowledge, and has never had a Black instructor.

The 2021 State of Equity in Education reports indicate that roughly 10 per cent of permanent teachers, 26 per cent of term teachers, and 20 per cent of substitute teachers in Winnipeg School Division identify as members of visible minorities.

The reports — which draw from 2017-2018 self-identification surveys conducted by the division — indicate WSD’s Indigenous population makes up eight per cent of total permanent educators, 10 per cent of the term teacher group and six per cent of the substitute roster.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie