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By Janelle Griffith
Idaho school district director apologized Friday after at least a dozen primary school employees collectively dressed as a "border wall" and wearing stereotypical Mexican costumes at Halloween at work – and posted photos of themselves on Facebook.
Heights Elementary School employees dressed like a cardboard wall in a set of brick-like costumes. The slogan "Make America Great Again" was written in red, white and blue letters on the chest.
A handful of other school staff dressed in sombreros, serapos (a long blanket-like shawl), wore fake mustaches and carried maracas. On one of the pictures, a woman seems to have written "Mexican" in capital letters on the edge of her sombrero.
The photos were posted on the official Facebook page of the Middleton School District earlier this week, but have since been removed. Screenshots of the costumes were posted on social media and recorded by KPVI, affiliated with NBC.
In a video posted on the district's Facebook page on Friday, Josh Middleton, the district superintendent, apologized for what he called "bad judgment."
"I'm really here to share this last night, a parent contacted me to worry about staff costumes worn on Halloween during the school day," he said in a statement. video. "I have seen these pictures and am deeply troubled by the decision of our collaborators to wear clearly insensitive and inappropriate costumes."
Middleton said he wanted to express his "sincerest and deepest excuses" and that the district administration "was looking into the matter".
The superintendent stated that he did not believe that there was a malicious intent behind the costumes.
"I mean we're better than that, we welcome all students," Middleton said Friday. "We have the responsibility to teach and reach the period of all students."
The school staff who wore the costumes were not identified publicly and it was unclear whether they would be subject to dismissal or any other disciplinary action.
Friday afternoon, Middleton's video drew over 2,000 comments, 170 shares and 20,000 views.
A Facebook user commented on the video: "Absolutely disgusting!" People who promote intolerance and racism do not belong to the class that perpetuates their political ideology, especially with young people! to be fired! "
Another wrote: "The actions of the school district will tell everyone what kind of community you are in. We already know that teachers are at best ignorant and insensitive, even racist."
A petition created Friday calling for measures to prevent such incidents from occurring contains more than 1,000 signatures at 7 pm
"Now our work begins by examining this issue and learning from it, and changing, and again, being the school we can be, the school district that we know we can be, rather than what was presented Thursday, "Middleton said.
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