Editor’s note: This story contains references to racial slurs.

Parents and teachers at a Birmingham elementary school said this week that school leaders have yet to take action against a P.E. coach who, they claim, has repeatedly harassed and hurled racial slurs at students of color.

“On Oct. 30, during our bedtime routine, my son Mateo mentioned that the P.E. coach called him ‘mojado.’ Mojado translates to wet back,” Aizlin Romero, a parent of a student at Avondale Elementary School, said at a school board meeting Tuesday evening.

“They went back and forth and the coach told my son over and over again that my son was wrong and that his name was in fact Mojado,” she added, saying that her son got so upset that he had to calm himself down with a breathing technique.

Romero said she recorded the conversation with her son and sent it, along with a complaint, to the principal the next morning. But the principal, she said, excused the coach’s behavior by saying he was simply mispronouncing her son’s name. Romero did not name the coach.

“He is unsuitable to work in such a diverse state, as his behavior and actions suggest he has opposing perspectives on building leaders and impacting the world,” she told board members Tuesday. “Nor is he an example of the type of leadership any parent or their child deserves.”

Last semester, 45 Avondale parents signed a petition requesting the coach’s removal, PTA president Adam Hodel told the board. But after meeting with school leaders, they were “left feeling discouraged” he said, and many are now requesting the board’s action.

In Alabama, a school board has the power to make personnel decisions, but only with a recommendation from the superintendent.

Board members did not directly address the complaints at Tuesday’s meeting. A district spokeswoman declined to comment on personnel matters on Thursday. AL.com has also attempted to contact Avondale Principal David Robert Seale and the school’s coach, but had not received a response before publication.

On its website, Avondale Elementary School lists diversity as a core value, and says it hopes to become a leader in public education, “meeting the needs of a diverse student population prepared to succeed in a global society.”

The school, located in east Birmingham, has a student population that is 74% Black, 17% white and 9% Hispanic or Latino. About half of the school’s educators are white, compared to 15% district wide, according to state data.

Art teacher Lydia Graves said at the board meeting that she told school leaders about complaints as early as 2022, after a group of her students reported that the coach called them the N-word. Students later told her that the coach put his hands on classmates, the first time grabbing a student by the neck and the second pinning a student to the ground, she said.

She reported each incident to officials, she said, who told her they reviewed the tapes but could not do anything because the incidents occurred outside of the camera’s view.

The repeated complaints led Graves to enroll her son, who is Black and attended the school’s pre-K program, in another school for kindergarten – “in large part because of what I’ve seen other Black kids experience in PE at Avondale,” she said.

“In my time as a teacher I’ve witnessed a few employees get fired when placed on administrative leave for less egregious acts,” she told the board, tearing up. “What I do not understand is why this teacher continues to be protected and not held accountable.”

Graves read a letter from first grade teacher Mary Beasley, who claimed the coach had brought her students to tears and had also harassed her on numerous occasions.

“He’s the reason I don’t feel safe in my workplace,” she wrote.

Romero works with the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, a group that has been working with local schools to provide more resources for Hispanic and multilingual families.

Carlos Alemán, HICA’s director, told board members that incidents like these, when not addressed, impede efforts to create safe and welcoming school environments.

“These sorts of efforts destroy those intentions, it breaks trust,” he said. “My pleading with you is to make sure that we’re doing everything to remove teachers that don’t align with our values, that don’t align with our intentions to create the most inclusive and best school system that we can provide to all children.”

Hodel told AL.com Thursday that the Avondale PTA is talking with the district to determine next steps.

“We’re confident that BCS is taking this seriously and we are optimistic about having a satisfactory resolution before students start school on Tuesday,” he said.