Parents protest two teachers' remarks in swim club case

At a Northeast elementary school that serves mostly minority children, a group of parents yesterday denounced two teachers for making what the parents consider racist remarks at the Valley Club.

"I am calling for their resignation," parent Christine Pembleton said of Michelle Flynn and Deborah Mindel, teachers at Laura H. Carnell Elementary. "And I'm not stopping here. I'm going to the school board."

Pembleton's son was a camper who attended the Huntingdon Valley swim club.

A Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission investigation found that the club had racially discriminated against a Northeast Philadelphia day camp this summer when it revoked an agreement to let the campers use its pool.

The report said club member Flynn, who is white, was disturbed by the presence of the campers. "What are all of these black kids doing here?" she is quoted as saying in the report, which The Inquirer obtained Tuesday. She also allegedly said she was "scared they might do something to my child."

District officials said yesterday that they had just learned of the report, but would not discipline Flynn or Mindel, who is also white.

Neither Flynn nor Mindel could be reached for comment last night.

"We certainly don't try to restrict the free speech of our teachers, or their actions," said Evelyn Sample-Oates, a district spokeswoman. "Of course, we hope they would not do anything harmful or racially offensive to our children. We are a diverse district."

Sample-Oates said the district had already planned on mandating multicultural sensitivity training for all teachers.

"These comments are alleged," she said, adding that the district would monitor the situation at Carnell and "be sensitive to the climate there for all our parents, teachers, and students."

According to district records, Flynn has taught in Philadelphia since 1994, Mindel since 1991.

Even if the district opted to impose discipline, the teachers would be entitled to due process and union representation, said a spokeswoman for the teachers' union.

Her son pressed against her, Pembleton stood on the sidewalk of the sprawling Deveraux Avenue school, which educates kindergartners through eighth graders, and said she was profoundly disgusted.

"I think it's a disgrace that someone could come to our neighborhood and teach our children and say those things," Pembleton said. "We're not good enough to swim with? You're not good enough to teach our children."

At dismissal time, Carnell parent Lerita Permenter hugged her son, Joe Hilliard Jr., hard. As a crowd gathered and chanted, "Resign, resign," the 7-year-old looked confused.

"I don't want you to feel bad," she told Joe. "Everything's OK."

Then she turned to Pembleton.

"Something has to be done," Permenter said.

When Jabriel Brown, Pembleton's son, entered the club that June day, his mother said, he was thrilled when he saw Flynn.

"He felt comfortable because he saw a familiar face," said Pembleton, who was flanked by relatives and spoke in an angry voice. Jabriel, she said, was disappointed by a cool response.

The report said Flynn later denied making racial comments, but she wrote in an e-mail to swim club board members that she was "very upset" to see the Creative Steps campers arrive at the pool. While Valley is a community pool, "this is not the community where these kids live."

She also wrote that "since I personally know some of these kids because I teach at the school and I have seen first hand what at least one of these children is capable of I don't feel comfortable with my children even going to the bathroom during this time."

She said one camper, Jabriel, was a "known thief" and had stolen a cell phone. Commission investigators determined the boy was never "charged, disciplined, suspended, or expelled" in connection with thefts at Carnell.

The report obtained by The Inquirer blacked out some names, including those of the children, but Pembleton identified her son as the child accused of theft by the teachers. She said she had spoken to investigators.

Flynn said the matter was not about race, however. "Thank you for your time and I needed to write something because I felt I was being treated as if because the kids were African American it was an issue. That could not be further from the truth."

Mindel was quoted as telling a camp counselor, "What time won't I be going to the Valley Club on Mondays?" - referring to the time and day when the summer camp children would be swimming.

When the counselor told Mindel that she should come the next week so the children could splash her, she said she couldn't because one of the children "steals," the report said.

Carnell, in the Oxford Circle section of the city, has more than 1,400 students, about 60 percent of them African American. About 25 percent are Hispanic, 7 percent Asian, and 6 percent white.

Carnell students are expected "to respect all members of our school community and its cultural diversity," according to its Web site.

Last night, no parent at Carnell's Back to School Night asked about Flynn or Mindel, said Vincent Thompson, a district spokesman.

Outside the school, principal Woolworth Davis shook parents' hands. He declined to speak to a reporter. Flynn and Mindel attended but were not available to speak to reporters.

Leaving school after meeting parents last night, fifth-grade teacher Ramsey Haver said his students were bound to ask questions.

"I'm sure it will come up, and when the time is appropriate, I will address it with my students."

George Sadler, whose stepdaughter, Aracelli, used to attend Carnell, was at the school with his family to translate for a friend who is Portuguese.

Aracelli, 10, was also a Creative Steps camper. She said Mindel was one of her favorite teachers.

Sadler was confused, he said.

"The kids have never had any ill experiences with these teachers," he said. But "if it was true that she was someone who spoke ill of the kids, how can she be teaching in an area like this of multiple nationalities?"

Sadler, who is African American and Hispanic, said he and his wife don't want their children to paint everyone with the same brush.

"It's something we teach our kids," he said. "Even though a few people in that club expressed themselves the way they did, you can't assume everyone is like that."