Parents address school board over alleged racial slurs, bullying their son endured

MILAN, Tenn. — Two parents address a local school board about racial tension that has transpired over a period of time.

The family of one Milan student attends their routine school board meeting in hopes of making a difference.

Shawn and Shereka Phinnessee, the parents of Milan High School freshman Skylan Phinnessee, came before the school board due to recent racial slurs and bullying their son has experienced.

The goal is to prevent problems from arising in the future.

“I come tonight, not just to speak just on behalf of my son, but to speak on behalf of any student that has dealt with racism within the school district. This should be a zero tolerance and it needs to be dealt with accordingly, and there needs to be some hard conversations,” said Shereka.

Shereka says the issue started while her son’s team was on a school bus. A senior student’s baseball bat fell out of his bag and as her son went to retrieve the bat to hand it back to the the player he accused him of stealing and proceeded to use profanity and racial slurs in which her son did not respond to.

She tells us multiple players spoke with the coach about the incident.

“What I am asking is that, starting here with this board, that they make some revisions to the policy. Not just this board, not just across the state of Tennessee, but the world as a whole. There needs to be stricter policies put in place when it deals with racism, racial slurs, bullying and intimidation,” said Shereka.

According to Skylan’s mother, the senior student began playing on the team again just after two games while her son hasn’t been back on the team for almost a month and a half due to the severity of the circumstances and his safety.

“We were told about this situation and we were also told it was followed per our policy, and that’s really about all I can say about this,” said Will Ownby, chairman for the Milan Special School District board.

Skylan’s mother tells us the issue has snowballed into emotional distress and turmoil for Skylan and his passion for the sport. His request from the school is for the senior student be suspended.

“There was disciplinary action. I can’t discuss that disciplinary action but disciplinary action was taken against this person. Discrimination has no place anywhere and I’m very sorry that this happened and that’s not what we want for the Milan Special School District,” said Ownby.

Policies 6.300 6.304 both deal with bullying, intimidation and discrimination in the Milan school district.

Skylan’s mother tell us she has not received a response from the school in regards to how they will move forward. After both parents spoke at the meeting, the board went silent and moved on to adjourn the meeting.

Shereka hopes the school will do a thorough investigation to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all students going forward.

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