Posted on December 16, 2022

Weatherly School Board President Questioned About ‘White History Month’ Facebook Repost

James Esposito Jr., Standard-Speaker, December 13, 2022

A former employee at Weatherly Area School District distributed a copy of a Facebook post shared by school board President April Walters that read, “I forgot, When is White History month.”

Tyree Harris, Weatherly, who was a paraprofessional for three years, distributed a color copy at the Dec. 7 meeting.

“As an African American male, I will not go for this. There’s no need for that,” Harris said while school board members looked at printed copies of the post, which was dated March 14 but without a year. “That’s ignorant, that’s racist.”

Walters said there is nothing racist about the post, to which Harris replied, “Are you kidding me?”

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Asked via email since then to comment further on the situation, Walters said she doesn’t think the message implies anything.

“It was a simple question. When is it?” she wrote. “The First Amendment gives us the freedom of speech — ALWAYS, not only when it suits people or a political agenda.”

She said she believes “every race should have a time for their heritage to be taught and celebrated. Yes, that includes White History, Black History, Native American History, Hispanic and any other race.”

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Walters said Harris is known to frequently “’stir the pot’ about issues that he does not have all the facts on.” She said he has yelled at and belittled board members at past meetings and in public “and is frequently out of line with his tone and volume level.”

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