BURLINGTON, Vt. -
The superintendent for the Burlington school district publicly apologizes for the way she handled a school diversity problem. Jeanne Collins says she takes responsibility for the frustration many people have over race inequality in the district, but Collins says she can still make a change.
Even after a public apology in the Burlington Free Press, community members at Tuesday night's diversity and equity meeting still called for school superintendent Jeanne Collins to step down.
"We need transformational leadership," said former school board member Vince Brennan.
He says the issue of racial oppression in the district existed for years and he is tired of the lack of action to address it, "I've just gotten to a point, with many others in our community that it's time to talk about new leadership."
Tensions rose to the point where in April, several African students spoke publically about how they have experienced racism at school.
"They say the N word a lot," said a Burlington student.
Collins says she understands the frustrations the community feels on slow progress, "The task force took a year to bring up their information, it's now been six months since that task force report, we can't wait another six months, we really need to do something now."
She says she wrote the statement of apology to take responsibility and to give hope to students, "We have students right now who need to see we are moving forward and I think it was a really important step to take."
To people who want Collins to resign, she says she can find the kind of change the students and staff are looking for, "I am the person the person who can see this through and I invite the community in helping me to do that."
Superintendent Collins says the school failed in not holding themselves accountable and not showing data through setting of goals. She plans to issue her ideas on how to move forward in the next week.
