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In the media: 'I couldn't let it go': How the expulsion of a Black student led a former vice-principal to quit

Former Toronto Catholic District School Board vice-principal Paul Raso
Paul Raso, a former Toronto Catholic District School Board vice-principal, says the board must do a better job to ensure the safety of students from marginalized communities who've been expelled. (Farrah Merali/CBC)

For 13 years, Paul Raso experienced different challenges working as a teacher and vice-principal in one of Toronto's most marginalized communities, but it was the way his school board handled the expulsion of one Black student — and the departure of that student's brother, as well — that Raso says finally pushed him to leave.

"I've seen a lot — enough for me to quit.... That was the catalyst," said Raso, who took a leave of absence after the incident, then left his job.

"Think about the cost of what happens when a child, a young person, a young Black child doesn't get the necessary kind of education that he should be getting," said Carl E. James, a professor in the education faculty at York University in Toronto who holds the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora.

"Think about the kind of education that he's not getting, the kinds of opportunities that get him to learn that would inform a trajectory."

Read the full story on the CBC News web site