March 18, 2019
Dear Parents and Guardians,
I am writing today to make you aware of a despicable incident that was discovered Saturday morning in our
stadium. Sometime late Friday night or early Saturday morning, someone painted a single-word racial slur on a mat
utilized by high jumpers.
The incident was discovered by one of our athletic coaches, who immediately reported what he saw to our School
Resource Officer. We believe it happened sometime between the end of our junior varsity lacrosse game Friday
night and the time our teams began practicing on Saturday morning.
We immediately removed the mat from the stadium. Along with county police, we are continuing to investigate this
matter to hopefully determine who committed this unacceptable act. I want to be clear that at this point we have no
information on any suspects, including whether there is a link to our school other than the location where this
occurred.
Regardless, these types of acts are simply not tolerable in our society. We do not teach students at South River or
anywhere in our school system that the use of such slurs is acceptable in any way. In fact, our school system has put
a great emphasis in recent years on educating students about acceptance and inclusion. That is, in fact, the thrust
behind the Global Community Citizenship course that our school system is making a graduation requirement
beginning with next year’s ninth grade students.
It is up to every single one of us to combat hate and intolerance. I assure you that we will be having discussions
with students about this very subject, and I urge you to do so at home as well.
If you have information that you believe can help in our investigation, please call the school or police immediately.
Sincerely,

William T. Myers
Principal
WTM/bm