EFFINGHAM COUNTY, Ga. (WSAV) – A video apparently showing Effingham County students mocking George Floyd’s death is making the rounds on social media.
An Effingham County student of color, who spoke to WSAV on the condition of anonymity, says it’s far from the first time students have seen something like that in the classroom.
The student says last year, another video of an alleged text conversation between students went viral in the district. It shows threats of physical violence, and so much use-of the n-word that we had to blur the entire thing.
And just two weeks ago, a black parent reached out to WSAV after her daughter was forced to change out of her Black Lives Matter t-shirt if she wanted to stay at a high school football game.
She said a white student wearing a shirt that read, “stomp on my flag, I’ll stomp your ass” was never approached at the same game.
Effingham County Schools Superintendent Dr. Yancy Ford said the girl’s shirt violated the district’s political advertising ban, the student’s mother disagreed.
The student News 3 spoke with Friday says these examples are just a fraction of what black and brown students in Effingham County endure almost every day, with little to no meaningful action from district leaders.
“Sometimes teachers will be like, ‘hey don’t do that,’ ya know, but other times it will get kind of blown over a little bit,” the student said. “So yeah, that’s kind of how it is.”
We did reach out to Ford again on Friday but have not yet heard back from him.
News 3 is told school leaders plan to hire more teachers of color and increase participation in the district’s diversity program, but we are still working to confirm that with the superintendent.