North Bend school official condemns ‘racist’ homecoming post
By ANDREW OZAKI
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NORTH BEND, Nebraska (KETV) — The head of North Bend Central Schools speaks out against a homecoming invitation photo posted on social media.
It shows the pair holding up a poster that some are calling racially offensive.
“Honestly, it makes me sick because it’s very frustrating to me that students and or adults would do something like this,” North Bend Central Superintendent Patrick Ningen said.
The poster in the photo read: “If I was black, I would be picking cotton. But I’m white so I’m picking you for HOCO?”
The moderator of the page took it down, calling it “racist.”
“I think a lot of upset people, students, parents, staff members, you know, this is something that shouldn’t happen,” Ningen said.
Ningen said only one of the youths in the photo is a student in their district. He wouldn’t identify which one.
But he said school officials talked to the student and the parents.
“I can’t discuss that at all, but just that we’ve made contact and that we have you know, we’re following our student handbook and the Student Discipline Act to to the extent that we can,” Ningen said.
Ningen said the district is limited it what it can do since the photo was taken off-campus, not during school hours or on a school computer.
“You have to take the First Amendment in consideration,” Ningen said.
He said they can look if the post caused a disruption in the school day.
“It’s a disregard for others. And so that’s why we’re going to do as much as we can to try and correct the situation,” Ningen said.
According to the Nebraska Dept. of Education, the district has 586 total students. Thirty-four are minorities, three are Black.
“I think there are some things we could do here, you know, kind of, you know, I’ve had some conversations with some people already on what we could do to raise that awareness,” Ningen said.
Ningen knows some will say it’s not enough.
“I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with them. We’re going to the extent of what we can do based on, again, the First Amendment and what we can do with the student discipline act. Is that fair? Is that right? In some people’s eyes, it won’t be,” Ningen said.
But he said they are taking this seriously.
“It’s important. I mean, this is something that that we can’t accept. And we can’t just kind of say we hope it goes away,” Ningen said.
Ningen said what makes the posting frustrating is that they just talked to high school and middle school students about being careful what you post on social media.
“But I think we could maybe even take that a step further and go into more specifics like race and that sort of thing and how this, you know, your statements, your actions can affect others in a very negative and personal way,” Ningen said.
Ningen said homecoming is scheduled for next week, ending with the home football game on Friday night.
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