PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A Portland family says their middle schooler was targeted in a racially-motivated attack during school — and they want answers from the district.
The incident happened nearly three weeks ago and the family says nothing has yet to be sent out to families districtwide. Parents tell KOIN 6 News they want this information out there so this doesn’t happen to any other child in Portland Public Schools, or elsewhere.
“It’s extremely shocking,” said Raheem Alexzander, the father of the student. “This is an unimaginable act of hate that happened to my son and something needs to happen and we need some answers. We need some answers from the school district.”
Alexzander’s son is an eighth grader at West Sylvan Middle School. He says he was accosted by two students in the middle of the school day while going to get a drink of water during class.
“They put him up against a wall, they bound his hands behind his back and they told him they were doing the George Floyd on him,” said Alexzander. “They put him face down on the ground with his hands behind his back, they proceeded to put a knee in his back. One of the students said to him that now they were turning off the body camera and they’re going to wait 20 seconds.”
The school and his family were notified afterward, but the parents say it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
“The question we have is why is this happening in our schools? Why is this happening in middle school? Why is this happening in PPS?” said Alexzander. “We’re asking this school why are these kids unsupervised inside the school to where that they can bound a kid and treat him and reenact such a heinous incident that happened in our country.”
Alexzander says his family asked PPS to send a letter about the encounter districtwide but says, instead, only West Sylvan families were notified.
In a copy of the letter sent Jan. 25, five days after the incident, the school principal, Dr. Jill Hunt, said the students “involved in creating the harm” are receiving “appropriate disciplinary action” and says counselors will work with students on anti-racist lessons in the coming months. In a separate statement to KOIN 6 Thursday, PPS said they were not able to go into further detail because it involved students but said, “safety diversity and inclusion are district core values and racist behavior will never be tolerated.”
Alexzander says it took three weeks just to hear from the parents of the students involved. He says after asking the district and school multiple times, he finally received a copy of the letter from those parents on Thursday, but says the letter from the parents was dated just a few days after it happened.
“PPS has thrown this on the back burner, they threw this under the rug, and they didn’t want this to get out,” said Alexzander. “(It’s) because it’s West Sylvan. It’s not a community of color. That’s why.”
Now, these parents not only want accountability from the district, but for this to also spark conversations with families around the community.
“It’s unfortunate that it had to happen to my son but hopefully this will deter this from happening to anybody else’s kids,” said Alexzander. “These conversations with this being put out, could’ve been had, and now we’re going to have them, but unfortunately it’s not because of PPS. PPS had the opportunity to get in front of this and start the conversation and be the first at the table and say, ‘hey, we’re going to be the first at the table to start and initiate these conversations,’ and maybe some parents would’ve said, ‘you know what, I’m not even well in this situation and this subject so I need help to understand,’ and that could’ve opened up other conversations. But they took that from them, they took that from our community, took that from our parents.”
KOIN 6 asked PPS about what actions are being taken with the students suspected in this incident and if there are plans to send anything to families districtwide now, but they said they couldn’t share any details beyond that statement and letter to West Sylvan families.