CEDARVILLE (KFSM)- A representative from the U.S. Department of Justice met with Cedarville School District faculty on Tuesday (March 10) after a teacher showed second-grade students two racist Martin Luther King Jr. YouTube videos in January.
About 100 faculty members went through eight classes of sensitivity training with Reatta Forte, who works for the community relations service at the U.S. Justice Department. The community relations service provides free training across the nation.
"The training is called drop by drop,” Forte said. “It [means] drops of water, how something can turn into something big."
Latia Hernandez’s daughter was in the class that was shown the racial slur-laced videos two days after Martin Luther King Jr. Day. She said the training isn’t enough and that racism is a problem in the city.
Hernandez pulled her kids out of the school and said she's gotten death threats.
"Telling me that they are going to hang me and my kids," she said.
Cedarville Superintendent Dan Foreman said teacher Lynn Schumacher showed the videos in her class. He said she was unaware the content was inappropriate until after the children had already watched portions of the videos.
Foreman said she is still employed by the district, but wouldn't comment about whether she was suspended.
"That was something that I was told from the superintendent and Hannah's principal, that I was going to get an apology,” Hernandez said. “I guess they just figured since I pulled the girls out then they can just let it go."
