School seeks federal help for racial tension

FORT WAYNE – East Allen County Schools and a local branch of the NAACP both want to enlist the U.S. Justice Department to relieve racial tensions at a rural school, leaders say.\nRev. Michael Latham, president of Fort Wayne-Allen County NAACP, said he plans to meet soon with a member of the department’s Community Relations Service in Chicago to discuss complaints of racism at Heritage Junior-Senior High School.\nEast Allen County Schools has also been working to set up an appointment with the department, said Julie Labie, an aide to Superintendent Kay Novotny.\nTwo students in mid-November reported finding identical notes containing racial slurs and threatening language in their lockers at Heritage Junior-Senior High School, located in a rural area southeast of Fort Wayne.\nThe reports prompted an investigation by the school district and meetings involving the NAACP, the school board and district officials. Some parents complained of other racist incidents at the high school.\nThe school district announced Wednesday that it had concluded its investigation and determined only one note existed, and it was found in a classroom lab table, not in a student’s locker. An unidentified number of students have changed their stories, school officials said in a statement.\nBut one of the students who made the initial reports told The Journal Gazette newspaper and Latham that a school administrator had intimidated him into changing his story, and he stands by his original statement that he had received a note in his locker.\nJesse Taylor, regional director of the Community Relations Service in Chicago, said Friday his staff was assessing whether to offer a mediator to help bring closure to the Heritage case.\n“We haven’t made any determination yet,” Taylor said. “We’re still looking at what we’ve learned.”\nThe agency doesn’t have any coercive or punitive power but offers mediation and training in conflict resolution.\nLatham said he would welcome the opportunity for someone outside of the situation to provide a fresh perspective, without the focus on personalities that happens sometimes when local leaders are involved.\n“I think it’d be very helpful,” he said.