Daily BrewHalifax school board scolds newspaper for untrue story about Syrian refugee students
[A sign at Chebucto Heights Elementary in Halifax welcomes 23 new students in February/Twitter]
A local school board is scolding the Halifax Chronicle Herald for a story published Saturday that alleged new students from Syria were bullying other students.
The original article — based on the accounts of two unnamed mothers and an unnamed grandparent who shared allegations of bullying and threatening behaviour by some new refugee children — has since been removed from the Chronicle Herald’s website.
“I was deeply offended to see the school represented so inaccurately,” superintendent of the Halifax Regional School Board Elwin LeRoux said in a message to staff.
“I have spoken directly to Sarah Dennis, the owner of the Chronicle Herald. I told her that the accusations, the language and the tone of the article were both harmful and hurtful to students, staff and the community of Chebucto Heights [Elementary School] – and to our entire school system. They’re also not true.”
On its website, the Chronicle Herald acknowledged the story was “incomplete and insufficiently corroborated, given the serious nature of the allegations.”
The newspaper also responded to describing the allegations in the headline as “brutality,” by saying the wording was unfortunate.
“Using the word brutality to describe children, particularly of an identifiable cultural group, is problematic,” the Chronicle Herald stated on its website.
The Halifax Regional School Board says Chebucto Heights has 1,500 students and families requiring additional English language support and 450 of those have arrived since September 2015.
“The influx in the number of new students to our system is not without its challenges. We also recognize that the growing diversity in our schools and communities continues to deeply enrich the learning experience for us all,” LeRoux stated.
“As a society, we all have an ongoing responsibility to understand and work toward eliminating all forms of discrimination.
“How can we do this? We can start by not stereotyping – a school, a group of people or a community.”
The Chronicle Herald doesn’t go so far as apologize for the story, nor does it mention the strike of its newsroom staff that’s been ongoing since January, but says some of the reaction the story received was “downright scary.”
The paper says it will continue to ask questions and try to get more answers as well as publish letters on the topic.
