Officials: Two students face punishment after racial incident at football game

Quakertown, Pa. WTXF) - School officials in Quakertown say two middle school students--both 8th graders-- will face punishment after a racial incident at Friday night's homecoming football game.

Many Quakertown High students leaving school Monday afternoon walked past a yard sign that reads "Hate has no home here." However, what happened Friday night, just across the street at Alumni Field, makes you wonder. It has Quakertown parents shaking their heads.

"It's not right. I mean, you should keep your opinions to yourself. Everyone has a right to voice their opinion, but when you're doing that kind of stuff that's just embarrassing and it shouldn't be said," parent Cheryl Clymer said.

As Cheltenham High School's football team arrived at Quakertown for a Friday night game, witnesses told officials from both schools that some Quakertown fans began to throw rocks at the Cheltenham bus and preceded that with a barrage of vile language. Dr. Wagner Marseille is Cheltenham school superintendent.

"Our cheerleaders and members of our band were insulted, using racial terms-- the most divisive racial terms you can use," Dr. Wagner Marseille said.

Quakertown Superintendent Dr. William Harner is ironically- a Cheltenham grad. He says a dozen middle school students were interviewed and two 8th graders were found to have engaged in the rock throwing and racial slurs.

"My heart is broken. Fortunately, it's just a few children and I say children middle school students, but they embarrassed me, they embarrassed our school board and our community," Dr. William Harner said.

Both superintendents told FOX 29's Bruce Gordon they would like to turn this into a teaching moment.
They want to bring both the perpetrators and the targets of this incident into the same room under adult supervision to talk about what happened and why it should never happen again.