The Houston County School District has agreed to make changes in how it handles racial harassment incidents after staff members were accused of discriminating and retaliating against two Black former students.
The district reached a resolution agreement on July 17 with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights regarding two parents’ complaints about a tumbling coach formerly associated with Veterans High School addressing their children with a racial slur and making derogatory remarks during practice, according to documents obtained through an open records request. The office of civil rights investigated the incidents and the response from the school.
Antwishia Thomas and Cortese Walker, parents of students on the team, initially filed the complaints against the school on Jan. 15, 2020.
Racist incidents were ‘swept … under the rug,’ parent says
While repeatedly attempting to contact school officials about the issue, Thomas said the district “swept things under the rug” and implemented measures that created a hostile environment for the girls, who were the only Black students on the cheer team.
Jennifer Jones, the school district’s spokesperson, said the district can’t comment on employee or student matters but is committed to making its schools safe and nurturing environments for all students.
“We reinforce this value by training all staff and students on harassment and bullying,” Jones told The Telegraph in an email Monday.
The Office for Civil Rights enforces Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires federally funded institutions to protect students from discrimination and harassment based on race, color or national origin.
What did federal investigation find?
Authorities investigated whether the district discriminated against the two students by failing to address a racially hostile environment and whether the district retaliated against the students after the incident was reported, according to the documents.
The office raised concerns about some of the “adverse acts that the students experienced after the complainants complained may have been retaliatory” from the team’s former head coach, as well as the district’s failure to fully address and eliminate racially hostile conditions that it was aware of.
The resolution does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing or liability by the HCSD pursuant to Title VI, the documents state.
But school officials agreed to conduct anti-racial harassment training for both students and school staff, promptly address reports about racially hostile environments and take other steps to ensure compliance with Title VI.
Thomas said she felt relieved when she was recently notified of the resolution agreement terms.
“My first thoughts were, ‘Finally,’” she said. “I feel like (the district) definitely should be educating everyone so this doesn’t happen to other kids coming behind our kids.”
Alleged retaliation after incident was reported
Names of the people involved in these incidents were redacted from investigative documents provided by the office for civil rights. But Thomas and Walker both told The Telegraph that cheer head coach Katie Satterfield and her husband, Daniel Satterfield, were involved. Thomas alleged that Daniel Satterfield called her daughter a racial slur twice in October 2019 during practice at Tumblecheer Heroes.
Katie and Daniel Satterfield didn’t respond to phone calls or emails seeking comment for this story.
“I never thought in a million years that racism would be displayed against my child at school, but it happened,” Thomas said after mentioning disbelief that it came from someone her daughter worked with for over three years. “We don’t even use that word in our household.”
Thomas and Walker became aware of the incident through the cheer team’s junior varsity coach, who heard the racial slur. When the JV coach addressed the coach who said it, identified by the parents as Daniel Satterfield, “he apologized and said it was not his best judgment to use the word. He also told the JV coach that he was quoting lyrics to a song,” according to the documents from the civil rights office.
The parents reported the incident to VHS administration, who said they would handle the situation. When questioned, all of the coaches denied that anything “unusual” occurred at practice, including the junior varsity coach who spoke out.
Thomas and Walker also alerted school officials about Daniel Satterfield’s history of bringing up negative race topics with their daughters, such as comments about dark skin or Walker’s daughter’s “ghetto” name, the documents state.
Thomas said their daughters were reluctant to tell them about the incident, fearing their mothers’ responses would result in retaliation, as they’ve witnessed against other student-athletes. Walker declined to comment for this story.
The head coach, who the parents identified as Katie Satterfield, allegedly retaliated against the girls by denying them a spotter for their stunts, telling them to perform without sports braces and deeming them “uncoachable,” according to the filed complaints.
After Thomas and Walker confronted the coach about the safety issue, the girls were kicked off the cheer team, the complaints read.
During its investigation, the district also found that three of the cheer team’s coaches were untruthful during initial questioning, according to the documents. Veterans High officials overrode the decision to remove the students from the team, moved the team’s practice sessions on campus and arranged for an administrator to monitor everyone.
When the girls returned, coaches gave them minimal instruction during sports games, which the VHS associate principal advised as a remedy. The office for Civil Rights highlighted that the suggestion may have encouraged different treatment compared to the girls’ white teammates.
Thomas said despite repeatedly contacting the Houston County Board of Education, she only received responses from VHS administration, which only offered remedies that made the girls feel alienated and subjected them to peer harassment.
The office of civil rights said the district’s failure to adequately address the negative peer reaction was enough to characterize it as an adverse action.
The office also said that although the district issued a letter addressing their cheer head coach’s professionalism and responsibility for the cheer team’s well-being, there was no evidence that showed an initiation of “any corrective action or dialogue that focused on the head coach providing a nondiscriminatory environment…”
Katie Satterfield resigned as the cheer team’s head coach in December 2019, citing “health issues,” but she remains at Veterans as an English teacher. Daniel Satterfield is no longer with the school.
Thomas said she felt the Satterfields were not held accountable for their inappropriate actions, particularly since her and Walker’s daughters suffered emotionally and mentally.
“The fact that they’re allowed to teach Black and brown kids is even more unsettling because, to me, their behavior was overlooked,” Thomas said. “There were no punishments. If a kid did anything that those grownups did, they would have been expelled immediately from school.”
Thomas said she is satisfied that the investigation highlighted how coaches were untruthful.
Houston County School District’s agreement
Prior to the office of Civil Rights completing its investigation, the Houston County School District expressed an interest in resolving the complaint.
The office of Civil Rights found that the resolution agreement was appropriate because it addressed concerns raised by the office throughout its investigation of the case, according to the documents.
The district agreed to the following actions:
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Issue an anti-harassment statement to the public and district community regarding the district’s prohibition against racial harassment
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Confirm its duty to promptly investigate and take action to end any harassment creating a racially hostile environment
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Conduct training for all school staff, district administrators and all district staff who provide athletics, or other extracurricular activity coaching services, on Title VI’s prohibition against discrimination and harassment based on race
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Conduct student-focused remedies that provide school level age-appropriate training regarding racial harassment and its impact on school environments, as well as how to report such harassment and discrimination.
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Contact the complainants and issue a letter acknowledging their raised racial harassment and retaliation concerns with the district related to the student’s experiences in the cheerleading program and including a copy of the district’s anti-harassment statement
The Civil Rights office’s monitoring of the agreement will be closed once all the terms have been satisfied, department officials said.
Thomas said the resolution terms look good on paper, but she’s worried the district won’t change anything.
“Do I feel like they’re going to be making and implementing changes? There’s no doubt in my mind that they’re just going to toss it to the side,” she said.
Jones said the school district encourages students to speak to a counselor or an administrator if they ever feel they were harassed. They can also anonymously report behavior or safety concerns online, she added.
“We will continue to focus on meeting the social, emotional and academic needs of our students,” Jones said.
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