Klan Joke Inspired Action : Oceanside Schools Get Race Program

In the aftermath of an April Fool’s Day prank involving five Oceanside junior high students who paraded in white robes like the Ku Klux Klan’s, school district officials announced the adoption Thursday of a new race-relations program.

The program, which will provide education on racial matters to both students and teachers, is the first concrete action by Oceanside Unified School District administrators in response to the incident.

“If there is a weakness in our system, we’re trying to address that weakness,” said Dan Armstrong, the district’s press spokesman. “We hope to provide some thought-provoking and informative types of programs, to put this in an atmosphere that is fun and interesting for both students and staff.”

Workshops, Orientation

Under the new program, teachers who are new to the district will be given special orientation covering the cultural and ethnic history of Oceanside, a racially diverse community that has been the site of marches by the KKK as recently as 1980.

In addition, administrators plan to hold an annual two-day race-relations workshop during the summer for teachers representing each school in the district. Those representatives would then share what they have gained from the workshop with the faculty and students at their school.

Finally, the program calls for the district to hold annual multicultural days, in which speakers would be featured at schools scattered throughout the city. Officials have not yet determined whether every school in the district will take part, Armstrong said.

The district’s action comes as a direct result of complaints by members of Oceanside’s black community after the April Fool’s Day incident at Jefferson Junior High.

Leaders of the North County chapter of the NAACP met with district officials to discuss the new race-relations program a month ago, but have not yet given any further input, Armstrong said. NAACP officials could not be reached for comment Thursday.

In a press conference a week after the prank, the Rev. Thomas W. Davis, president of the NAACP’s North County branch, said the incident, “be it intentional or unintentional, has kindled probably arousal of racial disharmony.” Davis also stressed that the episode shows an insensitivity to black culture within the school district’s curriculum.

Moreover, Davis and several other black leaders called for district officials to transfer Nancy Beckett, the teacher who allowed the students to come to school dressed like the KKK, to another campus.

Teacher Not Transferred

Although district administrators issued a verbal reprimand to Beckett, they refused to transfer her, citing restrictions against such actions and stressing that they felt the incident had been blown out of proportion.

The incident began when, as part of the curriculum for her English class, Beckett and her students took on the topic of prejudice. To help spark discussion, the teacher showed her pupils a videocassette of the award-winning film “Places in the Heart,” which features a sequence involving a KKK attack on a black character.

The students were outraged by what they saw, Beckett said in an interview last month. With April Fool’s Day approaching, one black youngster broached the idea of dressing up like the Klan as a way of lampooning the group, Beckett said.

Although the entire class originally agreed to take part, only five of the students brought sheets to school April 1--two whites, two Latinos and one black. At the urging of the students, Beckett allowed the five to parade outside the classroom and up to the principal’s office at the beginning of the lunch break.

After the incident exploded, Beckett apologized to school officials, the faculty, students and the NAACP, explaining that she had made an error in judgment by allowing her pupils to don the robes.