The parents of an elementary school student are demanding more action after they say an assistant principal said the n-word to their biracial son while admonishing the 9-year-old.
Jessica Gouin, the child’s mother, told WMTW, that her son came home and told her about the incident that occurred at Willard Elementary School in Sanford, Maine. Neil Jarett, the father, called the school, at which point the assistant principal acknowledged what she had said and apologized.
“She said yes I know I’m wrong I did call your son a n–ger, and I wasn’t thinking about the consequences at the time or what it would do to your child,” Jarett said.
The incident started when the child was sent to the principal’s office for bullying another student. The assistant principal asked the child, “If I called you n–ger how would you feel?”
Sanford Superintendent Matthew Nelson said that “there was no malice intended” and that the assistant principal was trying to teach the student a lesson on how words can hurt.
However, now Gouin says that her son hasn’t really wanted to go to school.
“He’s going to remember this for the rest of his life that his [assistant] principal called him this at school,” she said.
Nelson said that the assistant principal will go through additional training following the incident, but Gouin and Nelson want more to be done before another child is targeted.
“They’re just going to brush off and keep it that way, and maybe a couple years down the line it’s going to be the same thing. It may not be my kid but someone else’s kid,” Jarett said.
