By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Edward Little High School has won a $35,700 grant to address harassment and prevent suspensions and expulsions for hate violence.

Edward Little will use the Maine Juvenile Justice Advisory Group’s grant to pay for an independent evaluator who will gauge how well the school is preventing harassment and juvenile delinquency. It will also pay for teacher training on stereotypes, lesson development on stereotypes and the school’s Nov. 1 Diversity Day, which will feature guest speakers and workshops on various cultures.

Once nearly 100 percent white, the high school now has dozens of students who are African-American, Somali, Chinese or members of other ethnic minorities. Racial tensions have increased in recent years because of that sudden diversity. Last year, two black students were expelled and a third was suspended for beating a white student. The black teenagers said they had been routinely harassed and called racial slurs by the white student and his friends.

This year, the mother of an Edward Little junior claimed her son, who is black, was the victim of racially motivated hazing by white Auburn and Lewiston students at a Junior ROTC camp in Gilead.

Edward Little High School has been working with the University of Southern Maine’s Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence for a year and a half. The center will also work with the school using this newest grant.

Officials say the center’s training has helped them quell racial tensions and improve the school climate.

Thirty nonprofit groups applied for the grant to work on juvenile delinquency. Six, including Edward Little, received funding. The names of the other grant winners were not released Monday.

The Maine Juvenile Justice Advisory Group is part of the Department of Corrections. It works to reduce youth delinquency and violence.

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