Black Lives Matter St. Paul is demanding the firing of a Como Park Senior High teacher who the group claims portrayed students as drug dealers and gang bangers when he vented in social media about a lack of district support in discipline matters.
The group has threatened a "shut-down action" at the school if special-education teacher Theo Olson still is on the job Monday.
Since that Thursday posting, however, arrangements have been made for Rashad Turner, a leader with Black Lives Matter St. Paul, to meet on Monday with Superintendent Valeria Silva.
At the school, Como Park High Principal Theresa Neal wrote in a Saturday statement to families that "we do not anticipate any disruption to our school day on Monday, but we will follow our school's safety plan as needed."
A month ago, Black Lives Matter St. Paul said it would disrupt the Red Bull Crashed Ice Championship after a St. Paul police officer posted a message on Facebook urging people to run over marchers on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. But it called off the protest after Turner said city and state authorities met a list of demands it had presented.
Turner, who ran unsuccessfully for a St. Paul school board seat last November, could not be reached to comment Sunday night. But the move to take on the school district appears linked, too, to the group's concerns over the disproportionate percentage of black students being suspended in St. Paul.
Olson did not identify students by race in Facebook postings preserved by Black Lives Matter in screenshots. Olson suggested that the district was not providing enough help in dealing with "kids who won't quit gaming, setting up fights, selling drugs, whoring trains or cyber bullying."
No specifics were provided on what was meant by "whore train," but Olson did state in response to a comment on Turner's Facebook page that the term "had to do with inappropriate sexual activity that took place."
