The Santa Barbara Unified School District is in damage-control mode after Santa Barbara Junior High School experienced another racial incident. Unlike the physical assault by students on a Black classmate in February, this one involved the verbal use of the N-word by the junior high principal Daniel Dupont.
The earlier incident that caused an outcry was when several Latinx students reenacted the George Floyd murder by kneeling on a Black student’s head and neck at the junior high and used racial epithets that included the N-word. It wasn’t until the child’s parent spoke during public comment at a school board meeting that the district notified the school community of the assault. Due to privacy reasons, it could say little about what actually occurred, but the student continued to be harassed on campus, the family said.
This incident with Principal Dupont took place in early November, and after repeated questions from the Independent, the district issued a statement on Wednesday that stated an investigation had taken place by two administrators in response to “an alleged verbal incident” that placed the principal on administrative leave. Any more detail of the incident itself was unavailable because of employee and student privacy rules, the district stated. It also listed a number of initiatives underway, such as anti-racism measures, reviews of systemic practices, and training taking place.