Hyde Park High School Teacher Describes Tensions in His School (1976)

this year? Is it any better, is it any worse? Well as Terry said I think we thought it was better at the beginning of the year. We thought it was going to be much smoother. And... and yet the tensions start to build up again. Like I said before, I said last Friday that the faculty Senate, and the faculty as a whole, feel that they're a small group that want trouble here and they organize it. They orchestrate it. And, uh... We have no power to get rid of these kids. We can suspend them out, they'll back tomorrow or the next day and the same foolishness will start again. If only there was the power to take some of these kids and put them in an alternative site, put them somewhere else. I think it would really help. Until we get that power, this is just going to happen again and again. [Pam Bullard offscreen] - Overall if... I mean, last year it was also the problem with that hard core of trouble makers. But what about the other kids in the school, is the attitude better or is there still hostility between the whites and the Blacks? - Again, I thought the attitude was better. We've got a lot of younger kids this year. We have a much smaller senior class and a much larger freshman class. The kids were smaller and seemed to be friendly. And I thought the attitude was much, the... the feeling in the school was much lighter, until Friday,

You know... I just don't know. We won't know for a time. You know when the police are in the building, it's like an artificial presence, that you don't really get the feel. You don't know if the kids have quieted down or they just don't dare do anything because there's 75 policeman next right around. So you don't really know until. It settles in and the police are pulled out again and then when we find out one way or the other. [Gaskill] - I'm going to agree with that. It's... I guess the idea of artificial