The mother of a former Bellwood Elementary School student last week defended her decision to contact the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia after a physical education teacher allegedly violated her daughter’s civil rights.
During an interview last week, Amy Warner said she had overlooked prior incidents at the Chesterfield school, but could stay silent no longer once she was told about the teacher’s actions.
Warner claims that on May 30, her daughter – then a fifth-grade student at Bellwood – informed her physical education teacher that she was fasting in observance of Ramadan, a month-long holiday during which Muslims refrain from eating and drinking between sunrise and sunset.
The teacher allegedly denied her request to be exempted from running along with the rest of her class, then subsequently ignored her when she complained of feeling nauseous and weak.
Upon deciding that Warner’s daughter wasn’t running fast enough, the teacher also allegedly forced the other students to continue running as punishment.
“Put aside the religious intolerance. It blows my mind that a child would tell a teacher ‘I don’t feel well’ and he would tell her to run faster,” Warner said. “I was a high school teacher for 10 years. The No. 1 priority is student safety. School is supposed to be a safe place for children.
“He also set my daughter up for being bullied. He made a mockery of her by telling the other students she was the reason they had to keep running. Nobody likes the kid who causes everyone else to get punished.”
Warner, who is Muslim, said it was “a huge culture shock” when her family moved to Chesterfield from Tampa, Florida, last year.
Both her daughter and stepdaughter were students in the fifth grade at Bellwood Elementary during the 2016-17 school year.
According to Warner, she first spoke to the school’s principal, Jennifer Rudd, after an incident involving her daughter and a social studies teacher.
Warner’s daughter and stepdaughter both elected to wear headscarves to school one day in February. When the teacher saw that Warner’s daughter was wearing a headscarf, he allegedly told her, “I have to check with my principal. You might have to take that off.”
Many Muslim women wear headscarves, or hijabs, in public as a symbol of their faith and modesty.
Warner said when she picked up the girls that day after school, they both acted as if they had done something wrong by wearing their headscarves.
Neither wore a headscarf to school the rest of the year, she noted.
“The fact that they felt like they were in trouble for wearing a headscarf is ridiculous,” Warner added. “They didn’t infringe on anybody else’s rights.”
In addition to the Virginia ACLU, Warner contacted the Council for American-Islamic Relations, which sent a letter to the school expressing concern about the teacher’s actions.
Warner said she also visited the school and spoke to Rudd, who apologized and claimed it was a misunderstanding on the part of the teacher. That incident was still fresh in Warner’s mind, she said, as her family prepared for Ramadan.
Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, marks the Prophet Muhammad’s receipt of the first of the revelations that make up the Quran, the holy book of Islam.
Ramadan took place this year from May 26 to June 24.
When Warner learned that her daughter and stepdaughter intended to fast this year in observance of Ramadan, she said she contacted Rudd and provided a detailed explanation of the physical rigors from fasting.
Warner insisted that neither she nor her husband forced their daughters to fast. To the contrary, she noted, she told them she didn’t want them to do so because daylight hours are long in May and June and it’s difficult to go without even a drink of water for as much as 14 hours.
“People on social media are saying, ‘This mother starved her child. Somebody should call Child Services,” Warner said. “What they don’t understand is it’s a holiday. Parents are fasting and the kids get excited, so they want to fast, too. They want to be part of it.”
Warner said she sought and received two special accommodations from the school: that her daughters not be forced to sit in the cafeteria during their lunch time and that they be allowed to avoid strenuous exercise in physical education class.
Warner assumed Rudd would communicate that information to her teachers. Based on her daughter’s description of what unfolded in her May 30 physical education class, Warner is certain such communication never occurred.
“It’s a happier thing to believe the mom didn’t do what she was supposed to do,” Warner said. “That’s far less ugly than what actually happened.” Frustrated by the teacher’s alleged behavior, she again contacted Virginia ACLU. The organization’s legal director, Leslie Mehta, wrote to Chesterfield County Public Schools Superintendent James Lane on June 22, informing him of Warner’s claim.
Mehta suggested that if the allegations are true, the teacher’s actions violated two amendments to the U.S. Constitution: the First, which guarantees the free exercise of religion, and the 14th, which ensures equal protection of rights under the law.
School Board Attorney Wendell Roberts responded to Mehta’s letter on Lane’s behalf earlier this month. Roberts said the school system is “deeply concerned” about the allegation of religious discrimination and promised a complete review of the incident.
“The school division regrets that the parent believes the school division was insensitive to her family’s observance of Ramadan,” Roberts wrote, noting that a member of the school system’s administrative leadership team will be contacting the parent in the next few weeks to discuss the findings of the investigation.
Roberts also assured Mehta that school officials will take “appropriate action” depending on the outcome of the probe.
“The school division will also use this incident as a means to review our existing instructional practices, School Board policies, as well as assess the need for professional development on non-western religious beliefs and customs and our obligations under state and federal anti-discrimination laws,” he added.
Warner, who said she has no plans to sue the school system and isn’t looking for money, wants the school system to require its employees to undergo cultural sensitivity training.
She also wants teachers to think twice the next time they’re asked to accommodate a situation like her daughter’s.
“I would like to be a cause of change for the better. If I can do that, I’ve done my part,” she said. “I can’t change people’s hearts. You can hate me. You can hate my kid. But at the end of the day, you’re going to respect us because you want to keep your job.”