A Pinellas County school with a large number of their students with failing test scores is now at the center of a complaint launched by the NAACP.

  • NAACP launches complaint against Pinellas Park Middle School
  • Complaint about teachers starting program to help black students who failed FSAT

In a complaint to the Pinellas County School District, the NAACP said teachers at Pinellas Park Middle School tried to help with a program aimed specifically at the large number of African American students who failed the Florida Standards Assessment test.

“We had teachers who were made aware that 88 percent of their African American students had not passed the FSA and their response was what do we do after being encouraged at the beginning of the year by their administrators that said we have to do something,” said NAACP St. Pete Chapter President, Maria Scruggs.

Scruggs said nine African American teachers at the school came up with a program centered on mentorship, academic remediation & cultural competency. They said the school currently has a program at the school once a week for students who need extra help.

“They pulled together and organized a comprehensive, what they deemed to be a comprehensive after school program that they were willing to volunteer their time four days a week,” Scruggs said.

In the complaint the NAACP said there were 50 percent of white students at the school who also failed the Florida Standards Assessment test at the school. But they said the number of African American students was so staggering they made a program to target those students and others could participate.

“The program was targeted towards African Americans because of the severity of the gap but any child that wanted to participate, because that was a question and discussion point, that any child who wanted to participate was certainly going to be welcomed,” Scuggs said.

Scruggs said the teachers were met with so much backlash and they had to scrap the program all together.

The school district sent us this statement. “Pinellas County Schools is committed to completing a full review of the NAACP's complaint. But didn’t elaborate further.”

Scruggs said she’s hoping this is reviewed especially since the NAACP already has a lawsuit against the district about the education of African American students.

“The most egregious act that we find is that one of the reasons that we’re in a lawsuit with the district is because of the achievement gap that exists for black students,” she said. “And to find that you have teachers that are willing to volunteer to try to improve that gap, be basically harassed and called racist themselves and to be met with such resistance is probably equates to the fact that when black folks were lynched for teaching other blacks how to read.”

NAACP leaders said the teachers who were a part of that group didn’t want to speak out because of a fear of losing their jobs. We’re told one of them has asked to be transferred to another school and another one has a transfer pending. The NAACP is asking that a teacher who was a part of the group of volunteers be able to be transferred if they choose to because the school has now become a hostile work environment.