White Florida elementary school principal is booted out over assembly filled with black students where they were warned their poor grades could see them end up ‘dead or in prison’

A white Florida principal says she was forced to resign from her role after a meeting she approved for black students told them if their grades didn’t improve they could end up “dead or in jail.”

Director Donelle Evensen, 39, said in a resignation letter that she was informed that the outcome of an investigation into the meeting would end badly for her, prompting her to quit, reports WESH.

At the August meeting, fourth- and fifth-grade students at Bunnell Elementary School in central Florida gathered, regardless of their test scores, and were told that black students were underperforming.

Parents said their children were warned that people with lower grades are more likely to go to jail, be shot or killed. But they had the chance to win food from McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A if they improved their scores. It was led by “two black teachers,” reports the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

“Regardless of whether she resigned or resigned, as long as she’s not in school, I’m fine with it,” said Jacinda Arrington, the outraged parent of a fourth-grader who was at the meeting. Fox Orlando.

In her resignation letter, Evensen said she was “heartbroken” by the response to the meeting.

“I have not earned the leave of absence I have been placed on, and I certainly deserve nothing less than the position I currently hold as principal,” the disgraced teacher read.

Evensen went on to say that the purpose of the meeting was to highlight the underachievement of groups, including Black students and people with disabilities.

The principal said improving the trajectory for Black students should be a priority, saying, “We must find ways to ensure all students are successful.”

“I can only hope that because of the unfavorable attention from this situation, light will shine and the most important conversation will inevitably be about the achievement levels of subgroups of students, including African American students and students with disabilities,” she added.

In a separate letter Evensen wrote to Bunnell teachers, she described the controversial meeting as taking place in a “positive manner.”

“Please know that I did my best to communicate to district officials the positive manner in which the meeting with African American students took place and reminded them of all we have already accomplished and the plans for what we would accomplish this school year. ‘, Evensen said in the staff letter.

The investigation was completed last Friday, but the results will only be made public after the appeal process has been completed, WESH reports. The results will be announced on September 17.

Another outraged parent, Danielle Brown, told Fox Orlando this week that she worried her daughter would be singled out.

“I just feel like you’re putting her in a situation where she’s going to be a victim of bullying,” Brown said.

Evensen only fulfilled the role of director since the end of 2023. She previously worked as an assistant principal for four years and won an award for her efforts during the 2022-2023 academic year. In 2020, she was named Teacher of the Year for Flagler County.

She had worked in the district for 18 years. In 2022, she received almost $90,000.

Her father, Don Evensen, has gone so far as to become a GoFundMe page for his daughter who sought $250,000 in donations. The fundraiser is titled ‘Unfairly Lost Her Job through Media Assault.’

In a section of the fundraising page, Don Evensen writes that his daughter has become a “sacrificial lamb on the altar of public and media attention.” At the time of writing, the page has only raised $1,100.

Don Evensen said the idea for the meeting was created by black teachers at the school and also signed by her predecessor.

The Flagler County school has 227 black and 696 white students among its 1,168 students and was assigned an overall C grade by the Florida Department of Education last year.

In addition to Evensen, a teacher who was present at the montage, Anthony Hines has also resigned. Hines, like Evensen, had been on leave since the infamous meeting.

Hine’s title was an exceptional facilitator of student education. He had worked in the district since 2019 and earned more than $68,000 in 2022, reports the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

‘I’m devastated. I’ve had a hard time. I have been teaching for 28 years and I am devastated,” Hines said CNN in a short interview.

‘We had a nice time at the meeting. I’m not kidding, but I didn’t think about it and I take full responsibility for that. There are transgressions that have been transgressed. I could have handled it better. “I didn’t know what you can and can’t do,” he added.

‘(The students) are close to my heart. And we just didn’t think it through,” Hines also said.

LaShakia Moore, interim superintendent of the school district, said in a statement when the meeting was first reported by the media that she had already spoken to Evensen about it.

“I had the opportunity to sit down with Bunnell Elementary Principal Donelle Evensen following a meeting of 4th and 5th grade students,” Moore wrote in a statement.

“We were able to talk about what led to this meeting and the steps that may or may not have been taken before or after it.

‘It is clear from my conversation with Ms Evensen that there were no malicious intentions in planning this student action.

“But sometimes when you try to think outside the box, you forget why the box is there.”

The Sunshine State has been at the center of an education debate since Gov. Ron DeSantis passed his Stop Woke Act to limit discussion of race and approved a curriculum that argued slavery provided slaves with skills they found useful.

County School Board Chairwoman Cheryl Massaro said the latest dispute had nothing to do with the Republican presidential candidate but was the school’s fault.

“It wasn’t a great idea,” she told the Washington Post.

“It’s sad that it was segregated by race because that’s not fair, but that’s what happened.”

Parents said their children were still upset after attending Friday’s meeting.

“So I’m going to die, I’m going to get shot, I’m going to jail if I don’t do it right, so now he’s freaking out,” Alexis Smith said.

“They’re still innocent, they’re still playing with action figures, so now we have to get parents over because of something that happened in their safe space at their school?”