BY LUCKIE DANIELS
My daughter Jaiya was irritated with me when I picked her up from Los Alamos High School on Wednesday (December 20). She wanted to know why I’d reported a student who once referred to her as “Hershey” to the District, given last year I had [at her request] agreed not to. She shared that she’d been escorted from her 4AB U.S. History class by security to meet with Principal Renee Dunwoody and Topper Freshman Academy Principal Ryan Finn, to be interviewed about a “new report” her mother had made about a student using a racial slur. She was asked to provide the student’s name, which believing that I had broken my promise to her, she provided.
The problem with this is that I had NOT broken my promise to Jaiya. I had not made a “new report” to the District, and I had not been informed of any plan to privately interview Jaiya in the middle of an already stressful week of finals.
My request to be present for any Los Alamos Public Schools meetings/interviews with Jaiya was made on September 4, 2023, immediately following the N-word English 11 incident. I’d witnessed once again, the complete mismanagement of a racial equity incident by LAPS District administrators and staff members. From the initial classroom incident (August 30) to the meeting with parents, students, principals, and the District (August 30) to the subsequent classroom “apology” (September 1), there had been nothing but compiled trauma, negligence, and inaction from the District. On September 4 I had the following email exchange with Principal Renee Dunwoody.
Courtesy Screenshot
Given it was the failure of the LAPS District to properly address the English 11/N-word incident that prompted me to file an Office of Civil Rights complaint, there are multiple investigations in progress (identifying both Dunwoody and Finn as witnesses), Jaiya and I are represented by legal counsel and a lawsuit that is moving to Federal court is in progress, I would have thought not attempting to “interview” Jaiya privately during FINALS WEEK for a NON-EMERGENCY to pursue a report her mother DID NOT MAKE, would have been prudent.
Courtesy Screenshot
At the very least, if the District was going to address comments that Luckie Daniels posted to Public Comments via the School Board message board on 12/13/23; it was a conversation to be had with Luckie Daniels, not her daughter who is a minor and burdened with navigating a public discrimination lawsuit in a high school environment where she often feels invisible.
Courtesy Screenshot
I was certainly angry by the time Renee Dunwoody and Ryan Finn made themselves available to meet with us. I had every right to be:
• Renee Dunwoody circumvented her 9/4/23 agreement to not meet with Jaiya without my being present or notified.
• There was no “new report” from me of racial slurs; there was a statement posted by me to “Public Comments” in context to the District’s continued decisions to conceal its Equity challenges from the Los Alamos community.
• No emergency required Jaiya to be interrupted during finals and escorted by Security to the Principal’s office.
• Two LAHS leaders whom Jaiya trusted exploited her faith, made her believe her mom had broken her word, and then documented [and reported on] her physical reaction to their disclosure.
• LAHS leaders tricked Jaiya into disclosing the name of a student she did not want to see disciplined for comments made last year, and that had the very real potential of further alienating her at LAHS.
• There was ZERO consideration of my daughter’s mental health and wellness in the District’s decision.
• There was a FAR easier path for information: Contact her mother.
Yes, I was angry, and I raised my voice. LAPS District administrators once again prioritized its motivations actions over my and my daughter’s afforded rights and wellbeing. We are exhausted from the 16 months of fighting to have racial equity issues acknowledged and properly addressed while we must witness the District publicly “deny all claims” made by us. Claims the District has never denied privately.
The night before (Tuesday) we sat in the car outside of our home for more than an hour, as we watched a car that had been parked just beyond our mailbox when we’d returned home after practice, leave, and circle past our home 3 more times. At one point, we feared that the driver might park their car and enter our property on foot.
Racial bias and hate are not just wrong. When a person is unable to see my humanity comparable to their own they can and to justify decisions that impact our lives negatively and introduce trauma. These decisions often jeopardize our mental health and cost us our lives.
When I read the email response from Superintendent Guy following the meeting in progress with Jaiya, Renee Dunwoody, and Ryan Finn that she entered, “Today’s school interaction” (note below), I could not help being sickened by her multiple uses of the word “threatening” in correlation to me, her inability to understand my right to be angry and to protect my daughter from more LAPS trauma, and her manipulative tactic of applying the “Angry Black Woman” trope to me—and by de facto—my character.
There is a superiority and belittling that Jennifer Guy asserts in her email to me and a not subtle inference that SHE has the right to address my daughter’s well-being. The arrogance of THE LAPS District administrator who publicly denies our experiences, who gave the directive to gather information from my daughter in my absence, believes herself to be capable of reminding me to protect my child.
Jennifer Guy attempted to shame me for being angry; to remind me of my place and limits under her authority. She made it clear LAPS has the authority to circumvent my parental requests and can access/interview my minor daughter at their direction; without the presence of me or her legal counsel.
Per Jennifer Guy, I need to allow a 24-hour window for meeting requests, I cannot be angry (no matter the LAPS offense) and I cannot inform LAPS staff of my intentions to make their continued targeting and equity violations of us public.
Racial Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation, and the message communicated to me by Superintendent Jennifer Guy on Wednesday evening, was the most transparent she’s ever been in expressing her view of me, and the efforts she makes to extend that view to others.
Racial Gaslighting relies on feeding racist stereotypes and beliefs to change the perception of how you see me, and with that shifts how you relate to me and whether you believe me. On macro-levels, Racial Gaslighting has catastrophic effects on people of color resulting in the loss of job stability, freedom, and often, our lives. On micro-levels, it moves a loud voice to a “yell”, an awkward LAHS conference room exchange to a “big blow-up” and an angry, Black mom into a raging threat.
An example of this is Jennifer Guy’s email statement: “Also, today, you repeatedly threatened staff with legal action if they did not agree with you.”.
Jennifer Guy is referring to my request for Renee Dunwoody to apologize for dishonoring our agreement, and my ask of both LAHS administrators to “make this right” [given I believe they care about Jaiya] before I left the room and moved to add new allegations to my complaints and additional defendants to my legal filing.
It doesn’t matter if there was no intention to traumatize Jaiya, their poorly executed actions did.
Renee Dunwoody and Ryan Finn lied to her, allowed Jaiya to believe I had broken my word, and used her trust to source information about something her mother said. LAHS administrators are responsible for protecting my daughter not only from racial slurs but also the wrongful actions of anyone not ALWAYS considering her rights and well-being. They failed to protect my daughter, again.
I do not believe Jennifer Guy intended to investigate a “new report” of a racial slur. If that had been the case, she would have contacted me for additional information, particularly after Ryan Finn reported he’d found no report that included the word “Hershey”.
Instead, I believe Jennifer Guy believed she discovered a fake discriminatIon claim by Jaiya’s mother, and that the only way to confirm this, was to circumvent my request to be present and to question my daughter without me.
To ensure LAHS administrators would honor Jaiya’s request to not discipline the student named and not take “administrative action”, I needed to send an email communication that included this language:
“I am not swayed by Jennifer Guy’s attempt to “gaslight” me with her “threatening thug” narrative, but I will not allow a student to be the target answering for the District’s historical failures. Administrative actions against this student will further ostracize and traumatize Jaiya, which may ultimately be the District’s intention.
Los Alamos Public Schools leadership has failed all its students by ignoring their responsibility to develop cultural competency and emotional intelligence in this community.
The accountability and the correction rests with Los Alamos Public Schools District. If it requires public outcry to accept that, so be it.”
For LAPS leaders who adamantly deny all claims of racial inequities occurring in the LAPS District, why was interviewing Jaiya during finals week, without my knowledge, treated as an urgent matter?
Where is the LAPS Policy Renee Dunwoody cited that afforded her the authority to circumvent our agreement, which I have requested repeatedly since Wednesday? Surely this policy should be readily available to every parent in this District, especially the Black parent suing the District in Federal and State court for discrimination.
When I asked Jennifer Guy to identify what report by me prompted this District action, she responded, “I don’t know, it’s in one of the emails you sent, you send so many.”
On Friday 12/22 in response to my 12/20/23 IPRA Request, I was provided the LAPS/LAHS staff communications and documents that captured this incident, and they too made me sick.
As is the case in every one of the (15) discrimination allegations being investigated and that will be heard in my State and Federal Civil Rights court proceedings, there have always been present opportunities for the LAPS District to simply do the right, the human thing.
However, when your racial bias views me as a “thug” and a “threat”, your humanity renders you incapable of seeing I’m just a mom fighting for the freedom, happiness, and wellness of her kid. I am just like you.
• Racial Gaslighting and Responding to Racial Gaslighting –
hcps://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/racial-gaslighting
• Serena Williams and the Trope of the Angry Black Woman –
hcps://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45476500
• How to Recognize If You’re Being Racially Gaslighted –
hcps://mashable.com/article/how-to-recognize-racial-gaslighting
** IPRA Requests for video and audio recordings of the 12/20/23 meetings have been made and will be shared upon receipt **