Anonymous email targets Oakton High School’s Black cheerleading coach

Faith Dabrio picked up the phone. On the other end was the mother of an athlete she had coached on the Oakton High School cheer team in the fall. She wanted to inform Dabrio of an anonymous email that was circulating in the cheer community at the Northern Virginia school and offer her support.The email included racist language, and it was about Dabrio.

, was sent anonymously in March to the new head coach, Jillian Domenech, welcoming her to the team and sharing concerns about the race of previous coaches, including Dabrio.“While this may be seen as racist or having prejudice against certain races of people, the last two years have shown that this is just not something that has worked out,” the email reads. “Our school and history of coaches have been predominantly white.

Fairfax County Public Schools — Virginia’s largest school district — does not track incidents of bias or hate. But, according to the county’s police department, the most recent data shows there was about a 66 percent increase in bias crimes and incidents, also known as hate crimes, reported during the three-year period of 2018 to 2020 compared with the previous period, 2015 to 2017.

Dabrio said she decided to leave the team after one of the athletes took an unprompted photo of Dabrio talking to another athlete from the sidelines and posted a it on social media with a threatening caption. Dabrio said she informed the school’s athletic director about the post and the cheerleader was ejected from the game.But, Dabrio said, she never felt that there was a culture of racism during her time as coach.

“It’s disturbing,” Darwaza said. “It makes the cheer team look bad, and we have never had any of these issues.”The Fairfax County branch of the NAACP has been helping Dabrio navigate the situation. The organization issued a statement Wednesday calling on FCPS to commission a third-party investigation into the letter and the “long-standing culture of racism.”

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