Black students at Charlottesville High School are so recalcitrant and violent that teachers refused to show up for school on Friday, which prompted the school board to close the school on November 20-21. Black CHS Principal Rashaad Pitt recently quit “suddenly,” too.

Classes at Charlottesville High School Cancelled on Monday/Tuesday November 20/21 to Continue Reset of Procedures and Expectations (All Other Schools Follow Normal Schedules) Find more: https://t.co/1tOVOInGTf

— Charlottesville City Schools (@CvilleSchools) November 18, 2023

Due to an unusual number of staff absences & limited available substitutes, classes at Charlottesville High School are canceled today, Friday, 11/17. All other Charlottesville City Schools will follow regular schedules. Thank you for your patience.

— Charlottesville City Schools (@CvilleSchools) November 17, 2023

From the black School Superintendent, Royal Gurley, and James Bryant, the black school board chairman:

As you know, CHS was closed today due to an unusual number of staff absences. In some cases, these staff absences were precipitated by two related fights yesterday as well as a number of other fights this school year among a small subset of students. These same students have often been tardy or absent from classes or otherwise disruptive. While these students have received both supportive and strong disciplinary actions, the situation remains. In addition, as many of you may know, last week CHS Principal Mr. Pitt announced his resignation. All of us—staff, students, families, and the Board—are feeling the cumulative impact.

[CCS, Gurley release more information on sudden CHS closure, CBS19, November 17, 2023]

“Subset of students”! One wonders what the race of that subset might be.

A report in the city’s Daily Progress rather explained the “subset” more fully:

Students roaming the hallways during class. Brawls in the common areas. Intruders let onto school premises. Teachers afraid for their own safety. Administrators unwilling or unable to discipline.

Things are not OK at Charlottesville High School.

On Friday, classes were abruptly canceled when teachers did not show up to work. The decision by so many school employees to call out appears to have been prompted by a series of wild student brawls that occurred the day before.

At least one of those fights included an 18-year-old intruder who does not even attend CHS and who was let into the school by a student for the sole purpose of perpetrating violence.

Charlottesville police received two calls from the school within minutes of each other Thursday, according to Charlottesville police spokesman Kyle Ervin. …

According to [an anonymous] staffer, things are far worse at CHS than administrators are letting on. There has been one fight every week since the beginning of the school year, they said.

And those fights have been “larger and more ferocious” than in previous years.

“That’s because there are more kids in the hall with more accessibility and more opportunity,” the staffer said. “And I think this is a really important point to make: There’s about 30 kids that never go to class and have not gone to class from the first day. They’ve never intended to go to class and do nothing but walk the halls and avoid adults.”

[The kids are not all right: Violence, intruders and chaos at Charlottesville High School, by Jason Armesto, Daily Progress, November 17, 2023]

When teachers tell the students to go to class, the students tell teachers to “f*** off.” 

A gang, apparently, controls the school:

The band of students, which the anonymous staffer said often walks the halls in groups of five, have at worst received suspensions of five or 10 days. …

[A] librarian hurt his hand while caught in the middle of a recent brawl in the school library. …

Some teachers have been inadvertently punched while trying to break up fights, according to the staffer, and many more have real fears that they could one day be hurt intentionally.

Of course, the newspaper did not identify the “band of “students” completely, which leads to the obvious conclusion. If white students were roaming the halls, fighting, and f-bombing teachers, we’d know about it. “White privilege” and “supremacism” would be an angle to the story.

As for demographics, the school district is 60 percent minority, and 28 percent black. The high school is 55.4 percent minority; 44.6 percent white, 28.6 percent black, and 13.9 percent Hispanic [Charlottesville High School 2023-2024 Rankings, U.S. News & World Report]. 

The school board does not include a white man.