Elementary school under investigation after principal accused of segregating students into classrooms based on race

On November 14, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights launched a federal investigation into an Atlanta elementary school following allegations made by a parent that the principal was segregating students into certain classrooms based on race, CNN reported.

The Office for Civil Rights wrote in a letter obtained by the news outlet that it would investigate the accusations that Atlanta Public Schools subjected students “to different treatment based on race” and whether the district retaliated against the parent’s complaint.

The investigation into the district was launched over a year after Kila Posey, a mother of two, filed a civil rights complaint against Mary Lin Elementary School.

Posey, a black woman, told CNN in a September 2021 interview that Principal Sharyn Briscoe, also a black woman, was segregating black children into certain classrooms.

At the time, Posey explained that she discovered Briscoe had designated two of the six second-grade classes for black students when she requested that her daughter be moved to a particular teacher’s classroom.

In an interview with WSB-TV last year, Posey alleged that Briscoe responded by telling her that the class she wanted her daughter in was “not one of the black classes.” According to Posey, Briscoe said that her child would be isolated.

“First, it was just disbelief that I was having this conversation in 2020 with a person that looks just like me — a black woman,” Posey said. “It’s segregating classrooms. You cannot segregate classrooms. You can’t do it.”... (Read more)

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