Idaho school investigating after teachers wore border wall costumes for Halloween
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A school district is investigating after photos showed school employees dressed as a border wall. (Middleton School District Facebook)
An Idaho elementary school came under fire after photos showed staff members dressed as the border wall for Halloween this week. The costume had the words “Make America Great Again” written over the front. The employees also wore costumes exploiting Mexican stereotypes.
Photos posted to the Middleton School District’s Facebook page showed staff members from the Middleton Heights Elementary School dressed up in cardboard to appear like a wall, KTVB reported.
The words “Make America Great Again” were written in red, white and blue. The teachers were also seen wearing sombreros and brightly colored ponchos. The word “Mexican” was written on a sombrero worn by a woman in the photo. The photos have since been taken down from the school's Facebook page.
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Josh Middleton, the superintendent of the Middleton School District, addressed the photos in a Facebook Live on Friday. Middleton confirmed the district was investigating the photos. Middleton said he was informed of the photos after he was contacted by a parent who expressed concern over the costumes.
“I was shown photos and troubled by the decision by our staff members to wear those costumes that are clearly insensitive and inappropriate,” he said. “I want to say we are better than this."
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The superintendent said he didn’t believe the costumes were meant to be malicious but were made in poor judgment. The teachers who were photographed in the costumes were not named.
"Now our work begins in looking into this matter and learning from this and changing, and again, being the school we can be, the school district we know we can be, rather than what was displayed on Thursday," he concluded.
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KTVB reported that 9.5 percent of the city’s population is Latino or Hispanic.