Clyde Edgerton, famed N.C. author, banned from his kids’ school district

Famed North Carolina author Clyde Edgerton has been banned by the school district where two of his children attend after he filed a grievance alleging discrimination in a popular Spanish language immersion program.

Mr. Edgerton, author of “Raney” and “Walking Across Egypt,” accused Forest Hills Elementary School of not giving students of color equal opportunity to enroll in the Spanish immersion program. He said 70 percent of students in the program were white, despite the fact that only about 44 percent of the school’s students are white, EAG News reported.

The program used a “first come, first served” policy instead of an enrollment lottery, Mr. Edgerton told WCQS public radio Wednesday. “It was very clear to me the deck was stacked.”

So Mr. Edgerton, a 2016 N.C. Literary Hall of Fame inductee, filed a grievance. Eventually, “it became public and it became embarrassing” for the school, he said.

“I went through the system and all of the grievance procedure and was unsuccessful,” the author said.

Last month, New Hanover County Schools Supt. Tim Markley banned Mr. Edgerton, who volunteered as a tutor at his kids’ school, from the entire school district after a parent accused him of gathering information about students illegally while conducting research on the immersion program, WCQS reported.

Mr. Markley reportedly gave the author permission to attend his child’s graduation this week, but the ban still remains.

The issue has brought on heightened scrutiny of the Spanish immersion program at Forest Hills Elementary School. The school’s embattled principal has submitted her resignation and the school system has announced it’s relocating the program so it can expand, the Winston-Salem Journal reported. It’s also reportedly switching to a lottery to choose students.

Mr. Edgerton said the ban is unfortunate, but it’s a side issue.

“The big issue is fairness,” he told the Winston-Salem Journal. “We’ve got a neighborhood school where certain segments of the neighborhood were first-come and first-served and other segments were last-come and not-served.”