ST. CHARLES COUNTY — The same night a parent found a noose in a Francis Howell bathroom, Miranda Bell tried to convince the district’s all-white school board that racism was a worsening problem in the district.
Bell, armed with a folder stuffed with stories from others, recounted the weeks of racist taunts she said students had hurled at her Black son, a high school freshman.
“There’s not an adult who can argue with the fact that there’s been an uptick in the prevalence of these verbal attacks,†Bell told the board. “As a parent and advocate for students of color, the sheer amount of racism points to a need for specificity on how these incidents are handled.â€
That August night, a Francis Howell parent found a noose in the boy’s bathroom. Not a day later, the district said the incident wasn’t racially motivated. But parents say the noose, regardless of its intent, again laid bare a cultural divide in the community. Their children, they say, have been dealing with racism in the school district for years. And it’s not getting better.
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Parents say their children come home complaining of being called the n-word, “monkey,†or, in one case, a “sun absorber.†The incidents happened on the bus, down school hallways, in text messages and at band camp.
Several parents said they or their children reported incidents to the district, and yet the behavior continues.
“It feels hopeless that anything will ever change,†said Cherie Magueja, whose 14-year-old son has been called slurs at school, including a slave and monkey. “How many Title VI complaints am I going to fill out? It doesn’t seem to make a difference.â€
Board of Education Vice President Randy Cook said he doesn’t want any student to be bullied or discriminated against.
“I think, for a school district, it’s incumbent upon the person who is the subject of that discrimination to report it in a timely manner and then the district investigates it and then fills out consequences appropriately,†Cook said.
In a statement, school district officials said they were aware of concerns brought by several parents and will continue to look into incidents as they happen.
But the district also warned parents that federal privacy laws often bar them from sharing details about a student’s discipline with parents of other students involved. “That can lead to a misconception that students are not receiving consequences,†the district said in the statement, sent by district communications chief Jennifer Jolls.
Bell, chair of the education committee for the St. Charles County NAACP, is calling on district leaders to address the problem.
“Our students have learned from our nation’s political leaders that taunting, mocking and cruel insults can be lobbed at others without accountability,†she said at the August board meeting. “They’ve learned from leaders in our district that developing empathy about the lived experience of African Americans is unnecessary, and they’ve learned from the collective silence and absence of disciplinary actions that these verbal attacks are acceptable.â€
Bell has now formally requested the district revise its bullying policy to explicitly disavow all hate speech, slurs, ethnic name-calling or racial taunts.
If the district were to take up Bell’s request, it would be one of the first, if not the only, ºüÀêÊÓƵ-area school district to explicitly condemn racial bullying in policy.
Superintendent Kenneth Roumpos met with Bell late last month.
She said he was understanding. But he also said the district couldn’t revise its bullying policy, by state law, to specifically protect some groups of students.
‘Go back to Africa’
With over 16,500 students, Francis Howell is one of the largest school districts in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ area. Its student body reflects the population of St. Charles County, where 5% of residents are Black and 4% Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2020 census.
But Francis Howell has become strikingly more diverse over the years. The share of Black students in the district is five times what it was 30 years ago, Hispanic students 40 times higher.
Some moments of conflict stand out.
In 2013, for instance, Francis Howell parents vehemently fought the busing in of students from unaccredited, predominantly-Black schools in Normandy. The Supreme Court had ruled children living in unaccredited school districts could transfer to higher performing schools. Normandy chose to transport its kids to Francis Howell.
At a now-infamous town hall, parents lodged all kinds of concerns. Would the Normandy students harm Francis Howell’s accreditation? Would the district bring in metal detectors, or drug-sniffing dogs? One mother of three said she worried about her children getting stabbed or robbed.
And in 2020, after George Floyd’s death at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis, some Francis Howell students stood up against racism in the district.
Mya Walker was one of them. In seventh grade, a student told Walker, who’s biracial, to “go back to Africa.†At Francis Howell North, she was bullied and felt isolated among her peers, she said. Students had called her racial slurs and a “libtard.â€
“Those are normal things you hear in the halls at Francis Howell,†Walker said.
That year, she spoke at a Black Voices Matter rally. Thousands had just marched along Mid Rivers Mall Drive to call for changes to the district’s curriculum, hiring practices and discipline policies. Walker never had a teacher at Howell who “looked like her,†she said during her speech.
Fed up, she left the district, opting to spend her last two years of high school at St. Charles Community College.
But the protesting sparked change. Black History and Black Literature courses were developed for high schoolers.
Former Superintendent Nathan Hoven spearheaded the formation of an equity committee to assess areas where the district could improve. One of the committee’s focuses was hiring an equity officer.
The school board also passed an anti-racism resolution. It was the only resolution to hang on school walls, said Michelle Walker, Mya’s mother and a board member at the time.
“It didn’t hang on the walls because the board or administration said it needed to,†Michelle Walker said. “It hung on the walls because as soon as we did it, teachers were asking if we could print posters.â€
But Hoven left in 2022. The equity officer was never hired. And the equity committee hasn’t met since 2021.
Undoing ‘very charged’ decisions
Equity Committee member Harry Harris, a parent in the district, said the group’s work was cut short because of political pressures.
“Not only had the situations we were looking at gone unresolved,†Harris said. “I think there’s more that’s been added to the fire.â€
Even as Superintendent Hoven was leaving, a political upheaval was reshaping the Francis Howell board.
Over the past few years, five members of the school board have been elected with the backing of the Francis Howell Families political action committee, a PAC openly hostile to “leftist principals.â€
Last year, the new board rescinded the anti-racism resolution. This year, it stripped the Black studies courses of their social justice teaching standards.
Cook, the board vice president, said in a recent interview that the board was simply undoing things done in a “very charged†political environment.
The anti-racism resolution, he said, “should never have been passed in the first place.†He said it was hastily put together, not well thought out, and inflammatory for some community members.
“It’s as if the district was calling the community racist,†Cook said. “The vast majority of us are not racists, despite how many times people will say it.â€
And some parts of the resolution, such as a sentence that said the board “stands firmly against all acts of individual and systemic racism,†would have compelled the board to stand against big, national issues, Cook said.
“I’m not interested in fighting that battle,†he said.
Board members said they’d rewrite or modify the resolution.
But no public action has been taken since then.
Parents speak out
Mitchell Long found the noose on Aug. 15 during his son’s football practice at Francis Howell Central High School. It was hanging from a bathroom stall.
Cottleville Police Chief Dave McCune said district staff notified him that a student “well known†among school faculty had hung it as a “cry for help.â€
“He didn’t know it was a racially sensitive symbol,†McCune said.
Fierce debate followed on social media. Several commenters chastised those who “assumed†the noose was placed with racist intentions.
“I find it hilarious,†one wrote on Facebook.
“Our children are scared,†wrote another. “Where is the leadership?â€
Parents who had previously filed complaints with the district were surprised by the speed at which the district determined the noose wasn’t racially motivated.
They hoped administrators would address the wounds it opened, or at least discuss them.
Parents say their children have experienced vicious name-calling for years.
For Bell’s freshman son, tensions escalated at band camp this summer.
She said one student called him “617-dog,†a reference to a black Labrador retriever named after the N-word, the mascot for the Royal Air Force’s No. 617 Squadron in the 1940s. In a group chat with band members, a student commented on picture of her son, saying, “All I see is a hungry monkey looking for a banana.â€
Bell said her son didn’t handle it the right way and sent a physical threat, triggering a three-day suspension for him.
“He was heartbroken because these were his friends,†Bell said.
Bell later filed a Title VI civil rights complaint, believing the frequent taunts had violated her son’s civil rights. The district agreed, writing in a letter to Bell about three weeks later that harassment, discrimination and/or retaliation did occur.
“My question to the district is: ‘What are you doing to protect students of color from retaliation, from future words like this?’†Bell said.
Still, one student responded in the group chat: “I got three days out-of-school suspension because some soft people can’t take a simple joke.â€
“For posting a picture of a monkey,†another student commented.
The band camp comments came after Bell’s son stood up for another student, a biracial girl, who was also at the butt end of racial jokes. According to the girl’s mother, Erin Burgos, kids started “acting like monkeys around her.â€
“They showed her a picture of a monkey they were trying to emulate,†Burgos said. “A third kid said, ‘Oh, that looks like [Bell’s son].’â€
Another student had called Burgos’ daughter “a sun absorber.†She’d also been asked by white students to say the N-word to “prove her Blackness,†and if a mark from a black sharpie would show up on her skin.
Other parents of Black or multiracial students have described similar encounters.
Rev. B.T. Rice, a local civil rights leader, said his granddaughter was repeatedly called racial slurs while attending Francis Howell. She transferred to a different district this year for unrelated reasons, Rice said.
“My view of the Francis Howell School District,†Rice said, “is they have got a good way to go for understanding the plight of African American students.â€