WILMINGTON, N.C. – A North Carolina school district has banned renowned author Clyde Edgerton from all school buildings after he raised questions about a racial disparity in a Spanish immersion program at his children’s elementary school.

Edgerton told WCQS public radio the issue started last spring, when he noticed that 70 percent of students in the Spanish immersion program at Forest Hills Elementary School were white, despite the fact that only about 44 percent of the school’s students are white.

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“There was a principal there when we started out who was using a lottery system, which is required in any partial magnet (school), and that lottery system was dropped” by a new principal, Edgerton said.

“I noticed that there were 37 whites and two blacks in the upcoming kindergarten class, … the class that’s about to finish up,” he said. “I knew, just as a parent in the community, that there were 40 spots available. …

“So I went in in May of 2015 and asked the principal a few questions about the proposal, specifically what was the written policy for getting in this kindergarten program. It was a very sought after program,” he said. “And the answer was there was no written procedure, that it was first-come, first-served.”

Edgerton asked why the school had not advertised the program in minority communities, and “she said because of safety issues, and then she volunteered to me that some black parents didn’t want their kids to take Spanish because – there was a rumor of this, she said – because of Spanish gangs in Wilmington,” according to the news site.

Sensing that the principal was full of baloney and after learning of students waiting to get into the program, Edgerton pressed on with his inquiry and filed a grievance with district alleging discrimination.

“I went through the system and all of the grievance procedure and was unsuccessful,” Edgerton said. “Some things happened and I’m not sure what …” but the situation escalated to the point Edgerton hired an attorney.

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The situation also resulted in the district banning Edgerton from all facilities in the school district based on allegations he obtained information about students illegally, according to WCQS. District officials allowed Edgerton to attend his child’s graduation this week, but the ban remains in place.

According to the Winston-Salem Journal:

In May, New Hanover County Schools Supt. Tim Markley told Edgerton in a letter that he was banning him from all school system grounds. Markley says his decision stemmed from a parent’s concern that Edgerton had inappropriately obtained private information about her child. Edgerton had telephoned the parent and left a message indicating “the manner in which you obtained the information may have been potentially illegal,” Markley said in the letter.

Edgerton, who’s a 2016 inductee into the N.C. Literary Hall of Fame, says he and other parents had been contacting parents who they believed had signed up for the Spanish program but were denied admission. He has said phone numbers were collected through “word of mouth, asking questions, canvassing.” The Wilmington Star-News recently published “Overwhelmingly White,” an extensive report on the controversy.

Since Edgerton and other parents began asking questions, the embattled principal at Forest Hills has submitted her resignation and the school system has announced it’s relocating the program so it can expand. It’s also switching to a lottery to choose students.

Edgerton is best known as author of the books “Raney,” “Walking Across Egypt,” and “The Bible Salesman,” and previously volunteered as a tutor at his children’s school before he was shut out.

The renowned writer told the Journal that while his ban is disappointing, he’s far more concerned with ensuring all students in the district receive an equal opportunity for a quality education, as required by school policy.

“The big issue is fairness,” he said. “We’ve got a neighborhood school where certain segments of the neighborhood were first-come and first-served and other segments were last-come and not served.”