The Loudoun County branch of the NAACP called for the resignation of 18-year schools Superintendent Edgar Hatrick on Tuesday, citing his perceived ignorance surrounding the plight of the county’s minority students.
“For you to state that SAT scores have risen for minority students when they have in fact decreased … is disingenuous,” said a letter addressed to Hatrick from the organization’s 18-member executive committee. Hatrick spoke before the group’s membership meeting in March.
The letter’s signers also complained about a lack of access to districtwide achievement data and a failure to increase the number of minority teachers and administrators.
“For nearly 18 years you have known that discriminatory hiring practices exist” in Loudoun County schools, they wrote.
Parents and school officials, however, called the letter misguided.
“I have total support for the organization of the [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] nationally,” said Phyllis Randall, chairwoman of Loudoun’s Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee, which has parent members in each of the county’s schools. “But the Loudoun NAACP and our organization are different … and we do not join them in calling for Hatrick’s resignation.”
Randall added that none of the letter’s signers has students in county schools.
School board member Bob Ohneiser said the schools “bend over backward” to serve minority students. “The school system is so dramatically to the left of what the rest of the county is willing to do, you almost have to laugh at such criticism.”
However, the two-term board member sympathized with the NAACP’s call for more openness. He said the board has been denied access to meetings between the superintendent and principals, who make hiring decisions.
“We’d be in a better position to defend the efforts if we had had access to the discussions,” Ohneiser said.
School spokesman Wayde Byard said the superintendent would not issue a statement about the letter.
Board Vice Chairman Warren Geurin called the letter “pretty bogus.”
Calls to the Loudoun NAACP and the committee were not returned.
