This petition is an important next step to the petition seeking to reinstate Coach Black as a teacher and coach! Also, there is a Facebook Group, We Support Coach Black, where you can stay updated too! 

On Friday April 4th, a student was doing/dealing drugs in the school environment. Mark Black, a longtime science teacher and wrestling coach, asked the student to stop numerous times. The student became aggressive, throwing punches and pushing Mark atop a table.

Mark used simple wrestling techniques to then deflect the students aggression, take him down to the ground, and hold him down safely. Once on the ground, the student stabbed him with a pencil, and his friends jumped Mark. Yet still, Mark stayed focused on diffusing the situation and holding the student  until help could come.

This was a fairly straightforward situation. Many students were witnesses and have said as much, and the student was quickly arrested. It'd have been easy for the superintendent to quickly get a gauge of what really happened - or to wait until she did. Nonetheless, within hours she'd sent an email to students and parents throwing Mark Black under a bus and supporting the violent student: 

"the kind of physical restraint used by the teacher is unacceptable. I have placed the teacher on leave pending the outcome of an independent investigation." 

 So finally, we have a teacher willing to take heroic action to defend himself and his students from an aggressive drug dealer, and rather than reward that teacher, the superintendent does the opposite. 

If she doesn't apologize immediately - and ideally step down - the repercussions for teachers in Santa Monica and other schools around the United States will be immense. The precedent will be set that students are permitted to act in complete disregard to laws, physically confront teachers, punch and push them... and if teachers do anything at all to protect themselves or their students, they will lose their jobs and experience a media smear campaign. 

We cannot allow such a precedent to be set, and we cannot allow the smear campaign against a teacher-turned-reluctant hero to go on any longer. Sandra Lyon must apologize now - both to Mark Black and to all the teachers and students in Santa Monica and around the United States whose lives she's endangered due to her brazen disregard for simply waiting until the facts came out.

Please join me in sending this clear message to Sandra Lyon!

-Daniel Jacobs '99 

BACKGROUND ON PETITION CREATOR: I am a former Santa Monica high school student and I wrestled under Mark Black for three years, two of which I was the team captain. He was a second father to me during a difficult stretch in my life, just as he's been for hundreds and probably thousands of students during his decades of leadership at Santa Monica High School. I've never met a better or more kindhearted man in my life; a man who has dedicated his life and service to supporting kids in growing up... always calm, always evenhanded, and always willing to do the right thing for his students, regardless of the politics.