‘Is This Even Real?’ Stunned Mom Who Confronted Preschool For Putting Kids In Blackface Reveals Texts With School To CNN

Courtney Politis was stunned when she learned teachers at her children’s preschool put kids in blackface to celebrate Black History Month, and shared texts confronting the school with CNN.

Controversy exploded when parents at a private Miami preschool learned that a teacher at the school painted several children’s faces with blackface to teach some sort of Black History Month lesson, and provided photographic evidence.

On Wednesday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, CNN correspondent Athena Jones joined co-anchors Don Lemon and Kaitlan Collins to share her interview with Politis, who discovered the incident when another parent called her, and the school posted pictures of the kids on their website.

Politis confronted Studio Kids director Patricia Vitale, and shared those text messages with Jones:

COURTNEY POLITIS: I’m appalled. Flabbergasted. There’s no words, like this… Is this even real?

ATHENA JONES: This is how a daycare in Miami celebrated Black History Month. A classroom full of two-year-olds in blackface.

COURTNEY POLITIS: Where are the checks and balances? Right? So nothing like this happens.

ATHENA JONES: Courtney Politis, whose one-year-old daughter attended the daycare but was not in this particular class, says she was horrified when another parent at the school shared these photos originally posted on the daycares app. They have since been removed.

COURTNEY POLITIS: I get a phone call from a close mom friend whose child also goes to the school and she’s like, Oh my gosh. You won’t believe what they’ve done in our child’s class. Like it’s, I’m sickened right now I’m completely I, there’s no words. And I’m like, well, tell me. She’s like, well, they painted all the children’s face blackface and sent messages out saying “Happy Black History Month.”

ATHENA JONES: She reached out to daycare owner and director Patricia Vitale that same day.

COURTNEY POLITIS: And immediately sending the screenshot over to her. And I let her know I’m like, this is racist. Her response? “I’m sorry?” Question Mark. “I don’t understand. What are you saying? What is racist?” blackface. “In our school, we don’t use this word, neither we have this kind of mind.”

ATHENA JONES: As a mother of two young biracial children. Politis says it’s hard to protect them.

COURTNEY POLITIS: I thought we would have more time before these sort of things are racism or microaggressions would have been experienced by our children.

ATHENA JONES: Reached by CNN, Vitale declined to comment. But in a message sent to parents the day of the incident, Vitale wrote, “We have received a comment from one of our parents regarding the activity that was done in a teacher’s class for the Black History Month. We have not intended to offend anyone, and we’re very sorry about any inconvenience.”

The following Monday, Vitale sent another message about improving the training of daycare staff.

“Following the Black History Month incident. We want to let all the parents know that we met Friday afternoon with all the teachers and staff. We went over several ethical and multicultural education points. I will teach them a class covering all the necessary topics regarding U.S. history and multicultural education. You may rest assured this will never happen again.”

But that promise wasn’t enough for Politis. She’s pulled her two children out of two separate branches of the Studio Kids daycare and is looking for another childcare provider.

COURTNEY POLITIS: Bottom line is, we can’t trust them with our children.

ATHENA JONES: And that’s the thing that’s most concerning to Courtney Polite is that she can’t trust this, these administrators to take care of care of and educate her children. And, you know, she said, I understand that teachers have the freedom to create activities for the class, but there are so many other ways you could have celebrated Black History Month. She said another school, they painted traffic signals. They learned about Garrett Morgan, who was a Black inventor who got one of the first patents for a traffic signal in 1923. And so their activity was painting traffic signals. She wonders why in this class, the teacher decided to dress these kids up as different professions, simply paint their faces black. That is not a celebration of Black history, and she just wonders how this could slip through the cracks. So we’ll see what happens.

DON LEMON: This is why knowing history and teaching the correct history of the country is so important, because then you don’t do really ignorant things…

ATHENA JONES: Exactly.

DON LEMON: Like this.

ATHENA JONES: Education is the antidote to ignorance.

Watch above via CNN This Morning.