Augusta County mother Melissa Turner’s 12-year-old son returned to Beverley Manor Middle School for the 2024-2025 school year.
Unlike other students, he was not just out for summer break, her son had not been allowed to attend school since January 23, 2024.
Turner said her son previously had no behavior issues at school before being suspended from attending classes despite having special needs.
“He’s never had any type of behavior issues, infractions, nothing,” Turner said of her child.
Turner said that at the end of last school year, she was unsure if her son was going to be held in 7th grade or allowed to advance to 8th grade.
Turner’s son told her that after Christmas break 2023, students at school were bullying him with racial comments. In response, her son created a SnapChat and hoped that the student bullying him would be blamed for the SnapChat. But, her son was the only student suspended in the situation and considered a threat to the Augusta County Schools community.
At his second appeal hearing, he appeared with Augusta County Sheriff’s Office deputies in handcuffs. At age 12.
He was released after his third appeal and after spending eight days in a juvenile holding cell.
Turner’s son attended summer school with RISE in Waynesboro and was promoted to 8th grade for the new school year.
He was given an IEP in 4th grade for his comprehension and reading skills.
Turner said she does not approve of what her son did with the SnapChat. But she also does not approve of the other students’ behavior, who had called him the n word and made comments such as “come pick cotton” and made gestures as if cracking a whip.
According to Turner, the school system perused four days of video footage of interactions between her son and the students and determined that nothing happened.
In fall 2024, Turner said her son is in a different school than the students who had bullied him. But she wants the school system to create safeguards against racial discrimination for students like her son.
“This is something that has been going on for years,” she said.
Turner also attended Beverley Manor and wanted her three children to also attend and graduate from the same middle school. However, her trust in Augusta County Schools is now broken.
Her oldest child, also a son, also experienced racism at Beverley Manor Middle School and she had to send him to live with his father in Harrisonburg.
“Basically, [the school system’s response] was it’s he said, she said and, when this happened, that my son needed to be aware of his surroundings and see who was around him at the time so that they could call witnesses in,” Turner said.
Without witnesses, Turner’s oldest son could not prove what had happened.
She believes her 12-year-old son is in the same situation now, which is teaching him that he cannot trust adults.
“If they had listened to him then,” Turner said.
By the time her oldest son was 17 years old, he had 18 felonies on his record.
She has a 10-year-old daughter in elementary school.
“They really have failed,” Turner said of the school system.
Although Turner’s son missed off-season conditioning during the summer but was allowed to return to school sports on August 16. He also missed two weeks of practice.
Turner hopes stories like her son’s will encourage the community to come together and create change in the system.
Dr. Amy Tillerson-Brown is a professor of history at Mary Baldwin University and vice president of the Staunton branch of the NAACP.
She said a 12-year-old Black boy was given nine days in juvenile detention while several white boys received no punishment.
“So, that’s what we’re dealing with with this. And, on top of that, you get the fact that this Black boy is not getting the services as required [by his IEP],” Tillerson-Brown said.
Despite having no behavior issues prior, Turner’s son was labeled a threat to the community because of the SnapChat incident.
“They just don’t care,” Tillerson-Brown said of school administrators.
She said the entitlement the white students received will only encourage more of the same behavior.
“And the toll is just so high,” she said of the situation’s impact on Turner’s son. “It’s going to be life changing.”
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Rebecca Barnabi
