Mariner student transfers after discovery of note that talked of shooting him

Published 3:34 pm Friday, March 26, 2010

EVERETT — A Mariner High School student has transferred to a new school after a classmate wrote a racially charged pro-and-con list about the ramifications of shooting him.

The author of the note is white; the boy who left Mariner is black.

The black student said it’s difficult to leave Mariner, where he has friends he has known since grade school.

“It’s hard,” he said. “There are some things I have to go through now,” including long bus rides and adjusting to a new school.

The threat with a racial epithet was found Feb. 26 in a trash can in one of the student’s classrooms, school officials said.

It read, in part: “Its just not worth taking a 45 to the side of that stupid n——— ugly ass ratty face!”

On the other side was a list of pro-and-con arguments for shooting the classmate, which concluded in capital letters: “Its not worth it!”

The black student said he felt threatened when he thought about someone going to the length of writing a pro-and-con list.

The student who wrote the note told school officials he had no intention of anyone seeing its contents.

The student also broke a window at the school in frustration after he learned a teacher had retrieved it from the trash can, said Andy Muntz, a Mukilteo School District spokesman. The teacher had been tipped off by another student and turned it over to school officials.

The student was suspended for 15 days, but the penalty was reduced to three days. He met with a team of school officials for a safety risk assessment, agreed to a mediation session and signed a contract setting expectations for his behavior.

Muntz said the school took into consideration many factors in reducing the suspension.

“Once it is determined that it’s safe to have a student return to school, then we would rather have them in school than not,” Muntz said. Otherwise, “other issues come into play, like losing credits, and it just becomes a bigger problem.”

The black student’s father said the offense amounted to malicious harassment. The discipline didn’t go far enough and should have included long-term counseling, he said.

“I feel for this kid,” the father said. “It’s to try to get this kid some help.”

Muntz said the student who wrote the note showed remorse. “It was kind of a one-sided dispute,” he said. “The kid who wrote the note was assuming things that probably weren’t true.”

The father of the black student said he simply can’t take any chances. He also is guardian to another student who he chose to transfer.

“It boils down to safety and the way they created their procedures,” he said.

The father said it doesn’t seem right that his son now must take transit buses for up to two hours a day and walk six blocks to attend his new school. The boy, who was student of the year at his elementary school in the fifth grade, splits his day between high school and community college classes.

Several black students from Mariner High School say they hope the incident doesn’t cast their school in a bad light. They say Mariner, where more than half the 2,000 students are minorities, is a good school.

“Just because one thing happened doesn’t mean other people should leave,” said Mikey Blaylock, a sophomore.

“We bond a lot more here than other schools,” said Mariner student body president Kamaria Carnes, a senior. “I wouldn’t trade my time here for anything.”

“It’s really been the best experience of my life,” said Kyle Jones, a senior.

Sarah Marshall, a sophomore, said she could envision sending children of her own to Mariner some day because of how accepting it is of students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The boy who left said transferring was the right decision for him, but “it’s still a hassle to get to school.”

Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com.