The family of an eighth grade special education student at a Texas middle school is furious about a certificate given him as part of a cruel "ghetto classroom" awards ceremony.
"I had to take a second look," Debra Jose – whose 14-year-old grandson brought home a "Huh?" award – told CBS affiliate station
KLTV.
"I was like, really? How could a teacher put this on there? ... Did she just say ghetto on a certificate that she was giving my grandson?"
The "8th Annual Ghetto Classroom Awards" certificate was signed by two teachers and bears the initials of the school's principal, Jenna Williams.
But Sulphur Springs Superintendent Michael Lamb told the CBS station the principal's signature was forged.
"Shocked. Shocked," Lamb said. "The 'huh?' award just begs questions. And then the 8th annual brings questions too."
"Back in the day, when I was growing up, they segregated us," Jose told the CBS station. "They put us in a part where they said we were 'ghetto.' If she knew what ghetto meant, she would have never approached that, because, being an African-American, we were always thrown that."
The child's mother, Jerrika Wilkins,
told a Fox affiliate her son "feels pretty inferior."
"You know, he want to succeed," she said. "You know, it just kind of hurt his feelings.”
The child's family says one teacher who signed the certificate, Tim Couch, who also serves as pastor at the Cross Branch Cowboy Church in Sumner, Texas, apologized, and the other teacher, Stephanie Garner, offered to resign.
They were told the awards were meant as a joke, not as a racial slur, the family told the Fox station.
"Ghetto was not supposed to be a malicious intent to degrade him," said Wilkins. "It was supposed to be all in fun. I didn't take it that way."
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