Era does the story that needed to be done, about the fact that there are numerous parents saying hey - we brought some of these racial issues to the school district’s attention months ago, and nothing was done.

Unsurprisingly, a district spokeswoman quoted superintendent John George as saying, “At this point, we are moving forward, not backward.”

That don’t cut it.

You get into a lot of questions - if some of these incidents were reported to teachers or low-level administrators, did they filter up to the higher levels? One former school district employee told the Era that “I also think it’s amazing that there have been statements that the school board/school officials didn’t think there was a problem with this type of thing” - indicating, perhaps, that officials knew the attitudes were out there but figured they couldn’t do anything until those attitudes precipitated a full-blown incident?

Districts have to walk a fine line, I suppose; just because you know a kid is racist doesn’t mean you can do anything about it until he does something. But one would hope other districts would call assemblies and tell the kids point-blank: If you do anything remotely like this you will be bounced from this school so fast it will make your head spin, understand?