VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Dr. Donald Robertson called racism allegations on the Kempsville High baseball team "very disappointing" during an interview on Friday morning.
The school system said this week there was evidence of racism, hate speech and harassment.
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"It was troubling, but this is something that we're not going to tolerate," Robertson said. "This is not what we stand for in Virginia Beach City Public Schools."
Robertson's comments are the first he's publicly made about the situation at Kempsville.
"As soon as we learned of it, the school immediately began investigating the situation," he said.
That led to the school canceling the team's season on May 6.
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As News 3 has reported, a mother of a player on the team says teammates called her son, who's Black, racial slurs, including the N-word.
The school's investigation found these issues had been going on for years.
"I can't tell you why it had not come out before them," he said. "It was just not brought forward to an adult or an adult didn't recognize what was going on or a parent didn't report it."
Some of the students were disciplined, although Robertson said he couldn't go into detail on that.
Two assistant coaches are no longer with the team.
The head coach is still in place.
Watch the full interview with Dr. Donald Robertson, Superintendent of Virginia Beach City Public Schools:
News 3 asked Robertson whether adults knew what was going on.
"There was some evidence that previously some adults knew that were parents of members of the team," he responded.
News 3 followed up by asking whether the coaching staff knew.
"The head coach there is in his first year," he answered. "The two assistant coaches indicated they did not know what was going on."
He did praise the school's principal, Melissa George, for acting quickly once it was brought to her attention.
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Going forward, he says the school system will look at improving training for coaches and will work with student groups on potential additional steps.
News 3 asked whether this issue is contained to Kempsville or whether it's happening at other schools.
"At this point in time, this situation is contained to Kempsville High, but we're not assuming that was an isolated incident at Kempsville High," he answered. "I'm not going to assume it hasn't come up there might have been issues, so we're looking into that."
He stresses students and adults need to come forward if they witness or are aware of incidents like this to prevent them from happening.
