SANDWICH – Sandwich High School officials have been made aware of a racist social media post that has been circulating among the community over the last week.

The original social media post shows a person flipping off the camera accompanied with the caption, "[Expletive] that [N-word] that died."

The post obtained by Record Newspapers has appeared to have been screenshot and additional captions had been added, including the alleged name of the original poster, where the original poster lived and the original poster's place of employment.

Tom Sodaro, principal of Sandwich High School, said on Tuesday he could not comment on whether a student from the school had been disciplined and the nature of the disciplinary action, citing federal and state student privacy laws.

However, Sodaro said, he and other school officials "were made aware of that post" within hours of it first circulating about a week ago.

The post comes amid continuing local and national protests against police brutality and racial violence, spurred by the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man.

George Floyd died on May 25 after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin put his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes while he was laying handcuffed on the ground. Chauvin, who has since been charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, remained on Floyd’s neck even after he repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe.”

Generally speaking, Sodaro said, if a student had authored the social media post, school was not in session at the time of the post circulating, nor did the post appear to have been made on school grounds. However, he said, students in extracurricular activities are subject to the school's code of conduct policy throughout the calendar year and not just the school year since their involvement in extracurriculars or lack thereof generally would not infringe on a student's right to an education.

According to the Sandwich High School athletics and extracurricular student code of conduct policy, disciplinary actions for "rude and unacceptable behavior" may include a warning letter placed on file for the first and second offenses, being suspended for one or two contests for the third and fourth offenses, respectively, and being suspended for 20% of the current season for the fifth offense. Participants are allowed to practice but may not be allowed to compete, per the handbook.

The 2019-2020 Illinois High School Association competition season has ended and the 2020-2021 season is still up in the air logistics-wise due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, sports conditioning or practice for groups of 10 or fewer, including coaches, have been cleared to begin per IHSA guidance.

When asked if the school or athletics program had a social media policy, Tim Gipe, athletic director for Sandwich High School, also said the school has a code of conduct policy for students involved in extracurricular activities and that the matter regarding the more recent racist social media post is being dealt with after athletic staff was made aware of the situation. Gipe declined further comment.

Sodaro said the high school strives for a culture of inclusion. He also said a post targeting someone by naming their home location and place of employment would be forwarded along to police to evaluate any additional legal ramifications.

Sodaro said he personally was upset by the social media post, whether it was jokingly made or not. He said that sentiment is not something the school stands for and it's not something students would be able to get away with, calling the post "unacceptable.”

“It’s rough to read anything like that," Sodaro said. "We don’t need anything like that. It’s just difficult to read that and if that’s one of my students … I just can’t believe they would be talking to any human being like that.”

*Record Newspapers Sports Editor Josh Welge contributed to this story.