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Schools

Teacher's punishment up in the air

By THOMAS C. TOBIN
Published July 23, 2005

LARGO - Pinellas school officials have proposed easing the discipline for a social studies teacher who required students to use a racially charged word on a quiz last spring.

In a memo to the School Board released Friday, superintendent Clayton Wilcox recommends that Dohn Bear be suspended without pay for two weeks. Wilcox had recommended firing Bear, setting up a two-day appeal hearing that was to take place next month.

Now the School Board is expected to settle the matter at its next meeting, Aug. 2. Bear, a teacher at Riviera Middle School in St. Petersburg, has agreed to the punishment. He would lose about $1,700 in pay under Wilcox's proposal.

The memo did not explain Wilcox's rationale for changing the discipline. The superintendent was away on vacation Friday and could not be reached.

Bear, who is white, required his students to write the word n----- on a Feb. 24 test about the movie Rosewood, which tells the story of how white mobs wiped out a black Florida village in 1923.

He showed the movie during a part of the curriculum used to mark Black History Month.

When some students substituted other words such as "black person" on the quiz, Bear initially marked the answers wrong. He later changed his mind and gave them credit. Still, the father of one black student complained, saying he found the word n----- offensive.

Bear, who was active in civil rights marches in the 1960s, said he wanted students to grasp the historical context of the word, to show them how hurtful it was, and to get them to stop using it so casually in the school hallways.

Wilcox has said the teacher showed poor judgment. In an agreement signed by Bear and Wilcox, Bear acknowledges he "created an environment where his intentions could be misunderstood, and students and parents could take offense to the assignment."

He also admits he violated district policy by showing students the R-rated movie without permission.

The agreement indicates Bear will continue teaching at Riviera when school starts next month. He has been there since 2001.

The case is one in a string of recent episodes in which Wilcox has recommended stiff discipline for teachers who have made racially tinged remarks.

In the case of a white football coach who told a black student to get his "black a--" in the huddle, Wilcox initially recommended dismissal but went to a 10-day suspension after black residents lobbied on the coach's behalf.

Later, the School Board reduced discipline for a white teacher who referred to a black child as a monkey, saying it was not intended as a racial remark. After that case, Wilcox reduced the discipline for another white teacher who used the term "black a--" while breaking up a fight involving a black student. Wilcox said he did it to conform with the board's apparent desires on such cases.

Jade Moore, executive director of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association, attributes Wilcox's change of heart in Bear's case to a "feeling out" process as he becomes acclimated to Pinellas County. Wilcox became superintendent Nov. 1.

"Dohn Bear did something that many teachers do not do or take the time to do, and that is he truly taught the lessons of racism," Moore said. "He never should have been fired for that."

[Last modified July 23, 2005, 00:52:10]