Students opened a window at Canton Middle School, and one screamed, “Our school?s not bad!”
Then they flung a ream of papers out the window and yelled “F– in? white people!” to a group of residents sitting on row house stoops across the street.
“We?re heckled ever day,” said Larry Korycki as he stood with neighbors Friday afternoon complaining about the troubled school.
“We?re called white bastards. This is nothing unusual.”
Korycki, a retired city firefighter, is among the Canton residents railing against a new privately operated middle-high school slated to replace Canton Middle this fall. He and others had rejoiced when school system officials had previously planned to close the school completely.
Threats from students aren?t just verbal, say residents, who complain of attacks, fights and vandalism.
“Teens in groups are attacking young women, old women and old men,” said Sue Thompson, an activist.
School neighbors are upset school officials didn?t include them in the decision to keep the building as a school, she said.
Still, Thompson said she hasn?t made up her mind about whether she wants the new school, called Friendship Academy, to open in the same building. So she plans on volunteering at Canton Middle before she decides.
People screamed, shook their heads and cried at an emotionally and racially charged meeting about the proposed school Thursday night.
“The complaints tonight are thinly veiled code for ?We can?t wait to get these little black kids out of our neighborhood,? ” sad Douglas Bahr, a Canton resident.
Korycki was still bristling at Bahr?s comment Friday afternoon.
“Just because we don?t want what the system is cramming down our throats, we?re called racist,” he said.
Alex Zamanski, a seventh-grader, said he doesn?t learn much at Canton Middle, where a classmate stabbed him with a pencil.
He wants to enroll in Friendship Academy.
“It?s a great opportunity for all kids who want to learn.”
IF YOU GO
What: Meeting about teenage crime in Canton
When: 7 p.m. Monday
Where: Southeastern city police station, 5710 Eastern Ave.
