NEWS

'Warning' sign found atop Baker School

Banner removed before students arrived for first day

Kaylin Parker | 682-6524 | kparker@crestviewbulletin.com | @kparkercnb

BAKER — The night before the first day of school, a sign was placed on the roof of Baker School.

The large white sign with black lettering read, "WARNING: Exposure To Sexism, Raceism, White Privilage, & CHRISTIANITY."

Okaloosa County School Superintendent Mary Beth Jackson said Baker Principal Mike Martello discovered the sign, misspellings and all, at 6:30 a.m. Monday and removed it prior to students arriving.

She said law enforcement is analyzing footage from surveillance video.

"I sincerely hope we can locate the individual responsible for the sign," Jackson said via text message.

Martello declined to comment and directed questions to the district.

Baker School was the topic of several local news articles last school year after a race discrimination lawsuit was filed by the parents of two black Baker School students.

On March 17, the Okaloosa County School District agreed to pay $500,000 to parents Tyronne and Lakisha Adams, settling a race discrimination lawsuit the Adams' attorney called “unprecedented.”

The School Board voted 5-1 in a closed meeting to approve the settlement recommended by its insurance carrier. Insurance covered $475,000 and the School District paid $25,000, board attorney Jeff McInnis confirmed.

The Adams’ legal complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Pensacola, not only accused about 40 students and teachers at Baker School of harassing their boys with taunts, threats and physical abuse, it further claimed the School District took no meaningful action.

Chief District Judge M. Casey Rodgers ruled prior to the settlement that the case could be taken to trial and that attorney Fred Flowers of Tallahassee could argue the School District had failed to protect the two boys, an eighth-grader and a 10th-grader at the time of the alleged harassment.

It's unclear, however, whether the Monday morning incident was related to the Baker discrimination lawsuit.