Some parents have been sending letters expressing their anger to the principal of Woodland Middle School in Henry County,Georgia, Dr. Terry Oates about his allowing rapper Clifford “T.I.” Harris to be a guest speaker at their children’s school. T.I. who was recently released from doing time in prison to serve house arrest after serving a year for attempting to purchase multiple machine guns with silencers, spoke at the school on March 5, as part of his probation.
Tom Myers, who has four children in the school, was one of many parents who complained about T.I.’s appearance in a letter to principal Dr. Terry Oaks. “In the future, if T.I. or any other convicted felon needs to perform community service, ask for parental permission to allow our children to be exposed to these questionable individuals,” wrote Tom Myers, who has four daughters at Woodland Middle School. In response Principal Oates sent out a series of defensive emails to parents addressing his decision to allow the convicted rapper to speak at the school. School officials have begun to investigate the email responses that were sent out by Principal Oates as well as a looking into their school’s policy, which does not require that administrators contact parents when a guest comes to the school to speak.
As part of his probation, the T.I. was sentenced to 1,500 hours of community service, 1,000 of which were completed prior to his prison sentence, in which he flew around the country visiting middle schools, recreational centers and various Boys & Girls Clubs, where he encouraged teens to stay away from drugs, violence and gangs.
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