Ashford, AL — Parents and students from a high school in Alabama are furious after a racist chat group of teachers was discovered by a student. The teachers in the chat titled “Bad A B’s” were allegedly talking about Black students, mocking them and calling them the n-word.
In the leaked portion of the group chat, the teachers were talking about a student named Anastasia Williams who they said was possibly pregnant. Other teachers then commented that she is quiet and also isn’t the sharpest student.
“I guess she mime sex?” one teacher allegedly said.
In another part of the chat, another teacher used the n-word on Preyun Snell, a former student at Ashford high.
“That n—– so slow he can’t walk and chew gum,” the teacher allegedly said.
Preyun said he knew the teacher who used the slur but he did not expect she would do that. Besides, he also had bad experiences at the school because of racial incidents in the past.
“I don’t like this school, period,” he told WDHN. “They racist, all of these folks racist.”
Moreover, Anastasia said one of the teachers apologized to her after the group chat was leaked.
“She was like she didn’t mean anything that she said or anything like that,” she said.
The student who leaked the messages said he saw the chat when a teacher gave him her phone during school hours. He took a video of it and sent it to numerous people.
Several parents were angry and said the teachers should be fired because they were not setting “good examples” anymore. Some even recalled other incidents in the past where teachers at the school also behaved inappropriately. They said some teachers sprayed chairs of students due to smell and called them less fortunate.
Venissa Wilson, an alumna of Ashford High School, said she experienced issues back when she was a student there.
“I stood up to them,” she said. “I stayed back and forth from alternative school because I came to learn, and with the teachers doing the same thing when I was in, I just did my days and (came) back because you ain’t gonna bully me.”
Meanwhile, Houston County School Superintendent David Sewell said that the teachers, whose names were not released, have been suspended.
“There are a lot of gray areas when it comes to anything that takes place on a cell phone,” Sewell said. “I hate that it happened. We try to put policies and procedures in place to make sure things like this don’t happen. We’ll go back and try to reinforce.”