Ardrey Kell students, parents and staff hold rally in support of suspended principal

Roughly 200 students, parents and staff attended a rally Wednesday in support of Ardrey Kell High School principal David Switzer, who was suspended last week amid complaints about his response to racial incidents at the school.

Switzer was suspended with pay, effective Thursday, while the district investigates accusations made against him, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools spokeswoman told The Observer Monday. CMS did not release more information regarding the investigation.

Competing petitions both criticized and defended his leadership. One petition with more than 4,000 signatures calls on Switzer to resign over of his handling of a vandalized Black Lives Matter display on the school’s spirit rock. Another petition, created to support Switzer’s leadership, had drawn more than 6,400 signatures by Wednesday afternoon.

Former and current Ardrey Kell students said Switzer did not do enough to address issues of racism with the entire student body, and at times, directly contributed to a culture of intolerance, such as using crude language to describe predominantly Black schools. Switzer has not returned The Observer’s call seeking comment.

But at Wednesday’s rally, students and parents praised Switzer’s leadership at the high school and his relationships with students. They said removing Switzer would not improve any problems at the school.

“Replacing him doesn’t fix it. All it does is shift the blame away from racist students to him,” said Julia Drago, a rising Ardrey Kell senior.

Drago, who organized the event, said Switzer is the best person to change the culture at the school and “combat racist actions like this head on.”

People at the event held signs saying “Switzer is NOT the problem,” “Save Our Switzer” and “Justice 4 Switzer.” They cheered several times as speakers commended his leadership, and at one point, they chanted his last name.

Multiple parents spoke about the relationships Switzer fostered with their children and said he makes an effort to get to know students individually at the school, one of the state’s largest and most overcrowded high schools with more than 3,000 students.

Drago praised Switzer’s leadership in an interview with The Observer.

“Switzer has been nothing but amazing when it comes to handling Ardrey Kell,” she said.

Brooke Byrom, a recent graduate who helped set up at the event, also defended Switzer in an interview. She said he approved a study hall where students discussed social justice issues.

“He always puts his students first, and everyone else first, and puts himself last,” she said.

Drago said she supports the Black Lives Matter movement and also attended an event at the school where students marched and repainted a spirit rock that had a Black Lives Matter display vandalized.

“This has nothing to do with politics,” she said of Wednesday’s event. “This has to do with policy and how we can change that to better our community.”

Multiple people at the rally held signs reading, “No politics/Yes education.”

At one point, the rally touched on recent current events related to the death of George Floyd, when a parent led the crowd in a cheer for two police officers watching the event.

A sign of deeper problems?

Some Ardrey Kell alumni have said the vandalism of the rock was a sign of deeper problems regarding race at the school. They said while Switzer did many parts of his job well, he did not do enough to seriously discipline those involved in racial incidents

In August 2019, Switzer apologized to Ardrey Kell teachers and employees for using the term “colored folks” during an earlier staff meeting, attributing it to a slip of the tongue while discussing diversity initiatives, the Observer reported. The district said in May that it had no record of disciplinary action taken as a result of the incident.

Alumni also said the initiatives taken regarding race were not enough, and that more needed to be done to educate the entire student body.

Many pointed to March 2019, when a white basketball player at the school used a racial slur in a Snapchat post before a playoff game against West Charlotte High. The student was not allowed to play in the the game, though he returned for offseason summer camps and was on the team again this year, the Observer reported.

Switzer denied the students’ allegations. He said appropriate actions were taken in each case involving student discipline, but that he could not share individual details. Switzer also said the school had implemented some programming around diversity for students and cultural sensitivity training for staff.

Code of conduct

In her speech at Wednesday’s rally, Drago said Switzer was restricted in his ability to handle racial incidents by the CMS code of conduct, which she said only mentions “racism” one time.

The 2019-20 conduct guide references racism by name in a section affirming students’ right to “feel safe from crime, violence, intimidation, bullying, harassment, racism and other discrimination at school.

However, in a separate section, it prohibits “bullying and/or harassing behavior,” including “references to race, color, ancestry, national origin” and other characteristics. Among the possible responses to violations, the administration can implement include in-school suspension, temporary or permanent removal from extracurricular participation and out-of-school suspension.