State College Area School District Superintendent Bob O’Donnell on Monday night discussed some findings of an investigation into a recent assault involving State High students, saying he was “distressed by the substantial amount of misinformation being conveyed to the community about the incident.”
The assault, which occurred inside the school before the start of classes on Feb. 1, stemmed from a photo of a white student wearing a racial slur and antisemitic imagery. A 16-year-old Black student is facing a juvenile delinquency case, though the specific allegations in the petition filed by the Centre County District Attorney’s Office have not been made public.
Cantorna said his office does not discuss specifics of juvenile cases, though he confirmed the student was not being charged as an adult.
O’Donnell said during Monday’s school board meeting that the district is working with both students and their families “in a restorative approach, while still holding them accountable for their actions.” He previously noted that district policy calls for a minimum of five days of out-of-school suspension for both assault and harassment of any kind, including ethnic intimidation.
“We remain deeply troubled by the violence and racist and antisemitic photo, and want to reiterate that we abhor any racism, antisemitism or violence in our school community and strongly condemn such actions,” O’Donnell said. “Moreover, since we’re committed to helping both students, who are minors, we owe it to them to help them learn from this and develop a path to move forward successfully.”
The district’s investigation into code of conduct violations — which is separate from the State College police investigation — used witness interviews and bystander and surveillance videos, O’Donnell said, again noting that the decision to pursue legal action is made by police and the district attorney, not the school.
According to O’Donnell, the district received no reports or information about racial intimidation during the school year involving the two students, who did not know each other prior to the altercation.
He reiterated that the district had no knowledge of the photo until after the assault and disputed claims that the photo had been circulating for months leading up to the incident.
“Contrary to some assertions, the photo had not been circulating widely on social media for five months,” O’Donnell said. “Rather, we understand the image was texted within days before the physical altercation. Had we been aware of it before the altercation and seen school disrupted because of it, we would have promptly responded.”
Some community members questioned why no adults were present in the hallway where the assault occurred. O’Donnell said several teachers were in the vicinity and responded when they heard the commotion but because the incident lasted only about 20 seconds it was over by the time they arrived.
Responding to reports of other racist photos involving students on social media, O’Donnell said “the district has a limited ability” to act. For posts that threaten school safety or cause disruption, a student can face consequences as outlined in the school handbook, in addition to any potential legal repercussions.
“The district also conducts threat assessments in these cases,” O’Donnell said. “However, when we learn of troubling behavior on social media, we talk with students and notify parents and guardians when appropriate.”
About 20 people spoke during another lengthy public comment session on Monday night, many addressing the incident and related issues. Some alleged multiple other assaults, fights and sundry illicit activities have occurred within the school, saying more needs to be done to curb violence.
Some argued whether or not racist language and imagery constitutes violence. Others continued to call for more to be done to address racism in the schools.
The State College NAACP and the 3/20 Coalition have started petitions calling for the delinquency case to be dropped and the former launched a GoFundMe campaign in support of the Black student and his family. They’ve also said racial harassment at the school should be investigated and if the case against the Black student isn’t dropped, the white student should face legal consequences for ethnic intimidation.
“This has been ongoing,” State College NAACP President and district parent Lorraine Jones said. “This is not an isolated incident. These things have been ongoing for years and these kids came to you over and over.”
Moving forward, O’Donnell said, the district is “building on our previous efforts,” to improve school climate and safety, prioritizing conversations within the high school community “to work toward further preventing acts of bias, hate and violence,” and offering educational sessions to K-12 families about monitoring students’ social media usage.
The district began working this week with Charles Phillips, a conciliation specialist from the U.S. Department of Justice Community Relations Services’ School SPIRIT program, to develop a program for engaging with students to identify issues or conflicts and facilitate conversations for addressing them.
“Although incidents like the recent altercation show that we have work to do to reach our goal of an inclusive and welcoming school for all students, we believe that we are making strides and have done much to promote inclusivity and equity,” O’Donnell said. “But we’re not going to not rest until all of our students feel safe and comfortable at school.”
Divine Lipscomb, a district parent and State College borough councilman, said conversation and understanding are desperately needed.
“If we don’t have an actual conversation and talk about how things are impacting us, we aren’t going to get anywhere,” he said. “It’s extremely important we stop overlooking one another and see each other for where we are.”
