Update (March 29, 2021): A New York private school headmaster has resigned from his position after being accused of ordering an 11-year-old Black student to kneel while apologizing to an instructor in what he describes as "the African way."
After news of the alleged February incident broke, St. Martin de Porres Marianist school in Long Island released a message to parents informing them that headmaster John Holian was on leave while the school investigated the incident, according to NBC News.
However, school officials later said on Wednesday that Holian had resigned.
"St. Martin de Porres Marianist School has accepted the resignation of our former headmaster," the statement read. "The leadership of St. Martin de Porres Marianist School continues to review the incident in question to ensure that it is never repeated again in any form."
The school added that Holian’s actions do not reflect the institution’s values, saying, "It is important to assure students, parents, and faculty that this incident does not reflect our long, established value of respect for the individual or the established protocols regarding student-related issues."
As Blavity previously reported, Trisha Paul, the boy’s mother, shared that on Feb. 25 her son was in school and had finished early working on a class assignment. When 11-year-old Trayson decided to start on other work, he was reprimanded by a teacher for taking out different worksheets during class.
Later, the child’s teacher sent him to Holian's office, who instructed the 11-year-old to get on his knees and apologize.
“My son was humiliated, hurt, embarrassed, sad and confused. He reads about things happening because of your skin color. To experience it… he’s just trying to process it in his 11-year-old brain,” Paul told the Daily News.
As a result of the incident, the mother said Trayson has been deeply traumatized and hasn’t been himself.
"He’s been completely quiet, not himself, just trying to take it all in," Paul said. "Most of the time, he doesn’t want to discuss it. His interactions with family members, relatives, friends, anyone around him has changed."
NBC News reports that Paul has removed her children from classes at the school and hired an attorney. She also revealed that she’s sending the 11-year-old boy to therapy for mental health support.
According to a school statement, Shawn Lisa Torres, a licensed clinical social worker and certified school administrator will succeed Holian as headmaster.
Original (March 22, 2021): An 11-year-old Black student at a Long Island Catholic school was forced to get on his knees and apologize to an administrator on Feb. 25, sparking a months-long dispute between the school and the child's mother, according to New York Daily News.
Trisha Paul, a Haitian American mother living in Hempstead, said she was disgusted when her son Trayson came to her and said St. Martin de Porres Marianist school headmaster John Holian tried to punish the sixth-grader "the African way."
“My son was humiliated, hurt, embarrassed, sad and confused. He reads about things happening because of your skin color. To experience it… he’s just trying to process it in his 11-year-old brain,” Paul told the Daily News.
Paul said she moved her son to the school last year hoping it would be a better environment for him.
But on Feb. 25, he was in school and finished a reading assignment early. He decided to get started on other work but was berated by a teacher for taking out different worksheets during class, Paul said, adding that the teacher ripped up the papers on his desk.
The teacher then sent Trayson to Holian's office, where the administrator ordered the 11-year-old to get on his knees and apologize.
Even after her son came home and told her what happened, she tried to give the school leeway to explain what happened, what he did wrong and why that punishment was handed down to him.
Paul spoke to Holian on the phone and asked him why that specific punishment was used on her son.
Holian admitted that that was not a common punishment given to students but then relayed a strange story about the Nigerian father of another student. Holian said the father told him that kneeling and apologizing was the "African way" of punishing children.
“This father came in and said, ‘you’re going to apologize to this teacher the African way, and you’re going to get down on your knees and apologize.’ I’ve never seen that before,” Holian said during a March 4 meeting with Paul.
Paul said she did not understand the story when Holian told it to her but that she began to understand that the headmaster simply thought all Black children should be dealt with that way.
“Once he started mentioning this African family, that’s when it just clicked. Like, this is not [a] normal procedure. I felt there was no relevance at all. Is he generalizing that everyone who is Black is African? That’s when I realized something is not right with this situation,” Paul told the Daily News.
“I asked the headmaster how the story was relevant,” Paul added, and Holian could not give her a good answer, she said.
In another meeting on March 4, which she recorded and shared with the Daily News, Holian then tried to change his story, claiming he did what he did to Trayson because he disrespected a female teacher.
“It was a situation where your son was really disrespectful and rude to a teacher in front of the other students. The whole idea is for your son to see he can’t speak to women that way,” Holian said in the recording obtained by the newspaper.
“If I had said to him ‘apologize and get back to class’… it would’ve meant nothing. So it was changing the way you say ‘I apologize,’” he added.
Paul was incensed by the response and said the school had never said anything to her about Trayson's conduct toward women. She said he is a "well-mannered, honor roll student.”
In the audio clip, Holian defends using the punishment, claiming he would use it on his own children if he felt he had to. But he later apologized to Paul.
“I’m sorry if you’re upset. It wasn’t a thought-out situation,” Holian said.
Paul did not accept the apology and has hired a lawyer, telling the newspaper that her son is now scared to resume in-person schooling and has been "really reserved" since the incident.
“He showed no remorse until he realized how it’s impacted my son. He’s going to therapy. He’s been very reserved and humiliated,” Paul said.
“What else can happen where it doesn’t occur again to any other African American or Haitian American students there?” she added.
The Daily News contacted Holian, the school and the Marianist Brothers, a religious institution that runs the school, but none of them would respond to comment, only lauding their work with children of color.
Yet, shortly after being contacted by the newspaper, the school sent out a letter to parents announcing that an investigation would be done into Holian's actions and that he had been placed on leave until its conclusion.
“I want to assure you that St. Martin’s neither condones nor accepts the actions of our headmaster. The incident does not reflect our long, established values or the established protocols regarding student-related issues,” acting headmaster James Conway wrote in an email to parents.
There is a long history of Catholic school administrators and teachers in New York abusing or levying unfair treatment toward Black students.
In 2019, several Haitian American students came forward when New York state decided to reopen the statute of limitations on sex abuse crimes.
One former student, who said he was abused in the 1980s, told The Haitian Times that Catholic school administrators often targeted the children of immigrants because they knew how much importance the Catholic church has in countries like Haiti.
“A lot of these predators they profile you. So they see a single parent, my mom came from Haiti so she didn’t know too much in terms of education or what to do or the rights. She was brought up in respecting the Catholic religion and you don’t go against it. They have 100% full trust,” TC, using his initials to protect his anonymity, told The Haitian Times.
