A high-handed approach by local school officials isn't helping matters in Wakulla, where race relations have been strained since a black student's rap poem was yanked from a Black History Month program Feb. 28.

At one point schools Superintendent Roger Stokley wrote to a group of concerned black parents: ``If our system doesn't meet your particular needs or desires, then maybe you should consider an alternate school system that may meet your desires or wants.``

The parents organized to fight the one-day suspensions of several dozen black students who boycotted classes in protest after Wakulla High School Principal Wade Nobles banned the poem, Black as I Can Get. The parents challenged the suspensions in court, picketed the school and packed a School Board meeting to complain that the black community was being treated unfairly. They're now considering whether to sue the board.