WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Chancellor Michelle Rhee phoned the other day to correct the record about recent violent episodes at Wilson Senior High.

In two columns, I had written that changes to Wilson’s school population had contributed to a climate of violence in which kids got jumped and pummeled. I mentioned that students from Oak Hill, D.C.’s juvenile detention facility, had been added to the school and perhaps upset its tender balance. Though I never wrote that these kids were perpetrators in the fights on school grounds, I can see where I gave the impression they were catalysts, if not actors.

“What wasn’t sitting well with me,” Rhee said, “was that everyone was trying to blame these kids for being in the school. All of the problems were pinned on these kids. That’s wrong.

“Not one of the Oak Hill students was involved in any of the violence,” she said.

I understand why Rhee wants to set the record straight. She strongly believes that her job, dare I say crusade, is to educate every child in Washington, D.C., regardless of their race, or their parents’ income, or whether mommy read them to sleep or shot up in the next room.

“It’s easy to scapegoat these kids,” she said. “But it amounts to blatant racism in some ways. They are an easy target.”

Racism. That’s pretty strong language. I’m not sure it fits in this situation. Facts are that the majority of the students at Wilson are African American. Many are white. Plenty are Latino. Some are Asian. Wilson is by far the most diverse high school in the city. For many years, it’s been the most peaceful. Having stopped by to visit students and a teacher as school was letting out Tuesday, I can report that it is still a rowdy but peaceful scene, and one of the few places where kids of different races come together.

Racism? I think not. What we have here is a school community — students, parents and teachers — that wants to help incorporate kids from different backgrounds into the learning environment. But in the case of students who come from Oak Hill, it might take more training, more structure, more security. Rhee agrees they need help in “transition.” Is she being a racist?

Recognizing that some students need special programs is not racism. It’s reality.

Last Friday, the afternoon after the chancellor phoned, a group of Wilson students met with her. They presented her with the Wilson Peace Initiative, their plan for keeping the halls and grounds safe, rather than Rhee’s “lunch in place” plan to feed all 1,600 students in their home rooms.

The catered lunch plan never came off. Students wandered outside into the spring afternoon Monday. Unworkable for a variety of reasons, it was officially canceled Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the students behind the Wilson Peace Initiative are hoping Rhee will take them seriously and implement their plan, which would, among other things, let teachers and students help supervise the halls. Combined with tough new rules for bad behavior, the plan might work.

Not racism — perhaps realism.