Hispanic Parents Allege Racial Attacks At Schools

Betty Reid, The Arizona Republic, May 10

SOUTH PHOENIX—Some Hispanic parents in the Roosevelt School District allege racial bullying is an issue that is very much alive on junior high campuses in the district.

The Arizona branch of the League of United Latin American Citizens was alerted and the group will hold a meeting tonight to find out how widespread the issue is at Roosevelt’s 20 campuses. LULAC invited Roosevelt parents to the gathering at the Travis L. Williams Family Center, 4732 S. Central Ave., at 7 p.m.

“These people have had to live with this; we are going to balance the table,” said Silverio Garcia, education chairman for Arizona’s LULAC. “Before we can fix today and tomorrow, we are going to bring the community in and ask, ’Where are we?’ Then we will address the issues.”

A group of Hispanic parents point to an April 5 incident in which African-American girls are accused of jumping a Hispanic peer near the Maxine O. Bush School cafeteria, as the event that caused them to speak out and seek help of LULAC.

Juan Galeno and Juana Mendoza said their daughter was so badly beaten that they had to call the police.

Children are supposed to feel safe and learn in school, said Mendoza, who still feels angry and sad about the attack on her daughter.

Other Hispanic parents said they are tired of the verbal abuse at Bush when they visit. Students taunt and call them ugly names.

Grace Wright, Roosevelt interim superintendent, said the district has yet to issue a statement about the parents’ allegations, published in Spanish publication La Voz and broadcast on Spanish-language TV.

Ben Miranda, a member of the Roosevelt School District governing board, said growth and a campus bursting at the seams is the cause of the incident. He also mentioned the pressures of fulfilling a federal accountability policy with No Child Left Behind as another reason the school has been adversely affected.

He does not believe the issue is tied to race.

“I think the problems in our district with regard to discipline has simmered for years now as a result of the neglect by the previous administration,” Miranda said. “We also have not given the principals sufficient direction and held them accountable for what happens at a school site. We have a dysfunctional disconnect in the past.”

Miranda indicated the district returned large sums of federal funds to the state because it was not spent by the previous Roosevelt administration. The funds could have bought pencils and school supplies.