Letters to the Editor: A student shouldn’t be able to call a teacher a slur without consequences

To the editor: Jared Lamb is a principal in Baton Rouge, La. He is very popular on social media for demonstrating his “rolling cart” approach to administration. He exchanged his office for a cart on wheels that has everything he needs to roam the halls of his school, checking in on teachers and handling problematic student behavior. When a student acts up, the principal takes the student out of the class so the teacher can continue teaching the other students. Lamb calls the parent, and often the student does not go back to class that day. There are consequences.

Teachers and parents throughout the country love Lamb’s approach to school management. One problem child should not hinder the learning of the majority of kids who want to get an education. Most of these problems occur because of terrible parenting. Any child calling a Black teacher the N-word probably learned that behavior from a parent (“Black teachers say students call them the N-word. LAUSD vows to teach them not to,” Nov. 11). The principal who returned the student to class with no consequences after repeatedly calling their teacher “stupid (N-word) four times” should be named and shamed for doing that.

California school districts should look long and hard at Lamb’s methods and adopt them fully. Our teachers, and the parents of the kids who are not acting out, deserve nothing less.

Paul Scott, Santa Monica