A former teacher at Kanye West’s Donda Academy alleges that the star banned books on black history from the school — and that students went hungry after only being fed sushi.
Cecilia Hailey, who is suing West, the Chatsworth, Calif., school and its directors for racial discrimination and wrongful termination, claimed that the rapper banned books — including “The Lost Boys of Sudan,” by Mark Bixler, which focuses on four victims of the brutal Sudanese conflict.
She told Pvnew there are now believed to be between just 35 to 40 pupils left at the $15,000-a-year private Christian school, claiming: “Kanye didn’t want anything to do with a lot of black history books.
“There was one book called ‘The Lost Boys of Sudan’ that was banned because one of the parents got shot in the book. But the kids were reading ‘Harry Potter’ and there are murders in [those] books.
“Kanye wanted nothing to do with history, I was told.”
The lawsuit claims that students were only given chef-prepared sushi for lunch.
“There was no breakfast. You had young kids eating raw sushi and cucumber rolls every day,” Hailey said. “A lot of the kids didn’t like it and that’s all they had.
“This is not a nutritional meal. There are state guidelines and nobody paid attention. I thought it was not only rude, but cruel.”
Hailey, who has been a teacher and an administrator for more than 25 years, joined the school last November right when it reopened after a brief shutdown amid the fallout of West’s anti-Semitic scandal.
Hailey alleged: “Kanye would never have sent his own children to Donda, no way … it was just a luxury day care.”
Although Hailey initially worked at the school as a substitute teacher, she said, she was given a contract in January after helping the current principal, Moira Love, solve ongoing issues.
She alleged that administrators struggled with behavioral issues and disorganization, and that students were not being taught properly.
“The kids had so many changes, so many teachers. I was like the fourth or fifth they had in the third grade, and they had had 10 principals in three years,” Hailey told Pvnew.
“It wasn’t that the kids were bad, it was that there was so much disruption.”
Hailey is joined in her lawsuit by her daughter, Chekarey Byers, another Donda teacher.
The two claim in legal documents, seen by Pvnew, that they were discriminated against based on their race, had wages illegally withheld and were terminated on March 3 in retaliation for reporting code violations.
Another big issue, Hailey said, is that students were not disciplined and bullying was widespread.
She recounted an incident in which a fifth-grade student slapped an eighth-grader in the face.
“The next day she came back and bragged about it,” Hailey claimed, “and no action was taken.
“The teachers recommended the child be expelled but nothing was done. The explanation was that Kanye wants certain marginalized kids in school, but this was a kid who assaulted people and didn’t need to be around other children. “
Hailey added of the fifth-grader: “She was kind of dangerous and there were kids living in fear of her, nobody did anything about it. I found that incredibly wrong.”
Pvnew has reached out to Love for comment and was not able to reach West, who is not believed to have a representative at the moment.
Hailey said she has no clue why parents are leaving their children enrolled at the school, which reportedly offers no grading system, but suggested they could be star-struck by West, whom she has still never met.
‘I believe that, unfortunately, the school needs to shut down. The kids need to be home schooled because it’s so late in the semester — and get actual grades and transcripts so they can transfer to another school. At the moment, they’re making a mess of these children.”
Hailey said she was told by Love she would be fired if she ever talked to West, after requesting to talk to the star, and that she was called “aggressive.”
“The thing that upset me is that he would go to his own children’s activities, but he would never come to Donda,” she alleged.
“Donda could be a wonderful place. We’ve got great students, but no leadership.”
