{"id":43649,"date":"2021-11-20T03:32:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T10:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/students-walk-out-of-ignacio-high-school-to-call-out-racism\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:14:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:14:41","slug":"students-walk-out-of-ignacio-high-school-to-call-out-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/students-walk-out-of-ignacio-high-school-to-call-out-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"Students walk out of Ignacio High School to call out racism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Isabella
Isabella LeMasters, left, and Alexis Ortiz, far right, participated in the Ignacio High School walkout Friday protesting racism. They said they were removed from their positions on the high school student senate because they chose to participate in the walkout. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

IGNACIO \u2013 About 21 students walked out of Ignacio High School on Friday afternoon in protest of what they perceive as a lack of action by school administrators in dealing with racist and discriminatory behavior directed from some white students toward students of color.<\/p>\n

The students assembled along the roadside at Browning Avenue and Becker Street, a block from the high school. Students waved signs that read \u201cDon\u2019t silence our voices, hear us,\u201d \u201cIHS doesn\u2019t stand with racism,\u201d \u201cOpen your eyes\u201d and \u201cHonk if you hate racism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drivers often honked, and students responded with cheers, applause and thanks.<\/p>\n

Students at the protest said there is a disparity between punishments doled out to white students versus students of color who had gotten into fights over racial slurs, with white students mainly receiving a \u201cslap on the wrist\u201d while students of color being temporarily suspended.<\/p>\n

Ignacio School District Superintendent Christopher deKay said the walkout gives the administration pause. The administration will \u201clearn some things, and move forward in a good way,\u201d he said Friday during an interview with The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids, they have concern about equality and racism and so they planned a peaceful protest, a walkout,\u201d deKay said. \u201cBefore they went out, we tried \u2013 we had a town hall where we could talk about things and things we could do better and ways to move things forward. They\u2019re doing something in a peaceful way. On some level, we need to be paying attention and we need to be proactive about what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident that sparked the protest involved a fight that broke out between two students earlier this month, said freshman student Elaina Manuelito.<\/p>\n

One student used slurs against another student, which prompted a fight, Manuelito said. The student who used slurs \u201cdidn\u2019t get anything but a slap on the wrist,\u201d Manuelito said. But the other student, was suspended for three days, she said.<\/p>\n

Jeremy LeMasters, a parent of four with his youngest three still in the school district, said there has been multiple fights this month over racial slurs being directed toward students of color.<\/p>\n

Isabella LeMasters, a junior at Ignacio High School, said she was removed from the student senate board because she chose to participate in the walkout, which she helped organize along with Alexis Ortiz, another junior.<\/p>\n

Ortiz was removed from the student senate, she said.<\/p>\n

Before the walkout, Isabella LeMasters said the high school hosted an assembly to bring \u201cboth sides\u201d together for discussion about student concerns of unaddressed racism.<\/p>\n

\"Ignacio
Ignacio High School students participated in a walkout Friday to protest what they perceive as racism at the high school with some students calling students of color racial slurs. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Isabella LeMasters, who is Black, said she is called the N-word on a daily basis. She said a student in her Spanish class calls her the N-word every day, right in front of the teacher, and the student is never told to stop and has not had disciplinary action taken against him.<\/p>\n

She said teachers and staff don\u2019t know where to start with mediating concerns about racism between students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey gathered us all together (for the assembly) and told us to talk about it,\u201d Isabella LeMasters said. \u201cAnd they didn\u2019t seem like they knew what they were even going to start to do. They were asking us for advice on how we want them to fix it instead of them just knowing what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeKay, the superintendent, said he doesn\u2019t know anything about the two students who were removed from student senate for participating in the walkout. But at the end of the day, he said the district wants students in class. The district wants to pay attention to social justice, but it also wants to grow academically.<\/p>\n

DeKay said he hasn\u2019t heard any concerns or reports about students directing racist remarks at students of color.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a staff that\u2019s very cognizant of our cultural differences and very supportive of it,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we know about things in the office, we work hard to investigate and to do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephanie LeMasters, Isabella LeMaster\u2019s mother, provided the Herald <\/em> with a copy of a letter she sent to the high school principal and superintendent urging the district to address racism in the classroom. She said she hadn\u2019t received a reply from the school district.<\/p>\n

DeKay said he was aware of the letter and had responded to Stephanie LeMasters by email Friday.<\/p>\n

Jeremy LeMasters said he is angry when he hears his kids come home from school and talk about how they faced racism from their fellow classmates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m almost 50, dude,\u201d Jeremy LeMasters said. \u201cI\u2019ve been living in Colorado almost my whole life. I\u2019ve been dealing with this (expletive) since I was a little kid. My oldest son, he\u2019s 26, he graduated from here. Same stuff with him, you know? He didn\u2019t want me to do anything about it, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

LeMasters said when his eldest son was in school, his son didn\u2019t want to rock the boat, get in trouble or be ostracized. He said the whole situation is heartbreaking for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter has sobbed literally for days about this stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they love going to school. They\u2019re good kids, they\u2019re good students, they don\u2019t get in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Superintendent says protest is a chance to \u2018learn some things, and move forward in a good way\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[155,28,846,2765,1850],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-ignacio-high-school","tag-ignacio-school-district-11-jt","tag-racism"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85781,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43649\/revisions\/85781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43649"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}