Racist graffiti found at Colonie elementary school

Students at Forts Ferry Elementary School are back in the classroom, after a disturbing incident over the weekend.

The story is that someone broke windows and wrote racial slurs on the back wall of Forts Ferry Elementary School.

Superintendent Joseph Corr sent a letter home to parents explaining to them what had happened.

This incident comes after the school welcomed a Black principal, Dr. Casey Parker, this past summer.

The superintendent says the maintenance staff was able to fix the windows and clean up the graffiti before students returned.

“The message to the school community is that this will not be tolerated. We denounce it. It is an affront and an offense to the entire school community,” said Corr. “We are a welcoming and affirming environment. We continually ascribe to be that and we are going to work forward.”

A man NewsChannel 13 spoke with on the phone says he witnessed the vandalism. He didn’t want to be identified. However, he says he was at the Forts Ferry playground with his grandchildren Saturday afternoon, between 4:40 and 5:30.

He says he saw a group of young kids come out of the woods, walk over to the building, and start looking through the windows, and then he heard the windows breaking.

He didn’t see any spray paint cans, and believes the graffiti was written with chalk. The caller said he shared that information with police.

NewsChannel 13 has phone calls to police. We are waiting to hear back.