The Anne Arundel County chapter of the NAACP claim Chesapeake High School in Pasadena, Maryland, is insensitive to the needs of its black students, The Capital Gazette reports.

The chapter held a press conference this week to address incidents at the school which include the use of racial slurs and a social media threat that targeted black students. The February 26 threat was eventually traced back to a black student, but chapter president Reverend Stephen Tillett believes that fact doesn’t mean the school doesn’t have a race issue.

“In Chesapeake High School, and its feeder schools, we have seen a decades-long pattern of resistance to change and the creation of a hostile environment for children of color,” Tillett said.

“It makes students feel unwelcome and unsafe. It makes parents fear for their children,” he added. “And it is the shame of the Anne Arundel County Public School administration that continues to assert that these many incidents are ‘isolated’ incidents.”

Tillett was joined by parents and students that attend the school. One parent, Russell Tongue, spoke during the conference and expressed concern for the students' safety.

“When your kids come home and say they don’t feel safe, we don’t have any choice but to try to stand up and have a voice for them,” he said. Tongue said his daughter, Princess, was suspended for breaking up a fight between her friend and another student who used a racial slur.

“I feel unsafe,” Princess Jordan said at the conference.

Tillett suggested that little has changed at the school over the years; he played a video during the event of Chesapeake alum Terry Keemer Sr., saying he was called racial slurs and told he “shouldn’t take algebra because he wasn’t going to be anything other than a janitor.” Keemer graduated in 1980.

Keemer's son, Terry Jr., was taunted for being in an interracial relationship and his other son, Jordan, accused a teacher of saying he didn’t trust black people and using a slur. The teacher retired in February.

“I guess they just assumed we would go away too, but we’re not,” said Nichole Keemer, Jordan’s mother.

A disparity in the county’s test scores and suspension rates was also addressed during the event. 18 percent of black students passed the 2017 PARCC Algebra 1 exam, compared to 26.9 percent of Hispanic students, 55.7 percent of white students and 64.2 percent of Asian students. According to the Department of Education, black students represented 44 percent of suspensions in 2013, despite being only 21 percent of the county’s student population.

County spokesman Bob Mosier pushed back at the allegations, and expressed a desire to make the environment safe for all students.

“We have things foisted upon us when hundreds or thousands of students cross paths every single day,” Mosier said. “Certainly, we’re working hard at it, not just at Chesapeake High School but at every school.”

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