Student-Certificate
A teacher at Anthony Aguirre Junior High, located in Channelview, Texas, near Houston, thought it would be funny to award her 13-year-old honors student with a certificate stating she is “Most Likely to Become a Terrorist.”
Last week, the teacher, identified as Stacy Lockett, presented Lizeth Villanueva with the award, while other teachers were present. Villanueva, a Salvadoran American student, said the teachers found it funny.
“[The teacher] said she was scared to give out this award because she doesn’t know what might happen … The teachers [laughed], too. There were four,” Villanueva told a local CNN affiliate.
Two honors classes came together for the mock awards, described by Channelview Independent School District official Mark Kramer as a “poor attempt to poke fun.”
Villanueva said other awards included “most likely to cry about every little thing, because [that student] is very emotional.”
She said Lockett followed the lead of the friends of another student who called him “Little homeless Indian” and gave the student an award for “Most Likely to Become Homeless in Guatemala.”
The fake ceremony took place the day after a suicide bomber committed an act of terrorism in Manchester, England.
“I was upset and very mad when I saw the award,” Villanueva’s mother, Ena Hernandez, told The Washington Post. “I was surprised because my daughter has been doing well in the honors program.”
According to a photo published in the Daily Mail, Lockett is Black and a former cheerleader for the Houston Texans. She also gave Sydney Caesar, a Black student, an award for “Most Likely to Blend in with White People.”
Sydney's certificate
“For that child to either be called a terrorist or she’s not Black enough, basically now the students are taking that and that’s her label for the rest of the school year,” her mother, Latonya Robinson, said in an interview.
“Everyone doesn’t believe that this is real. But yes, this certificate shows that this is real. This happened. And we have enough bullying as it is by other students, now it’s being done by a teacher.”
Lockett is a teacher in AVID, an advanced learning and college prep program. The AVID system “provides intensive support to students with tutorials, positive peer groups, and college-readiness skills,” according to the Channelview Independent School District (ISD).
Channelview ISD condemned Lockett’s actions, describing the certificates as “insensitive and offensive mock awards” and said they are in “no way associated with the AVID College Readiness System or the AVID Center.”
The junior high school tweeted an official apology on Twitter:
Anthony Aguirre Junior High apology
The ISD said the “teachers involved in this matter have been disciplined according to district policy and the incident is still under investigation.”
But Robinson said she wants the school to take further action and Hernandez says she wants the teachers that participated in ceremony fired.