The Pekin Community School District's Board of Education is expected to accept their superintendent's resignation Monday night. But some in the community feel he's being pushed out.KCCI reached out to Superintendent Derek Philips, but he wasn't able to give a comment on the situation.KCCI was allowed inside Pekin High School. Teachers and students say it's a shame he won't be back next year."It was complete shock," said Dakota Bates, a teacher at Pekin High School.Bates has worked under Philips for about a year and half, and says he's one of the best superintendents the school has had.Pekin students agree."It's just a better culture in general, and I think we owe that to him," said Mackinzie Vannoi, a senior at Pekin High School, in a room filled with about 15 of her classmates, all of whom felt the same way. "It makes me want to learn, it makes school enjoyable, and when someone like him is resigning or being forced to leave, it's very upsetting," said Ben Guise, also a senior.That's why Bates thought it was odd when the school board scheduled a special meeting to accept Philips' letter of resignation for Monday night."We have heard it was a personality conflict, irreconcilable differences," Bates said. "His ruling of a good conduct was overturned."Bates, along with other teachers and parents in the community, pointed KCCI to an incident that happened in late September, saying a student called a classmate a racial slur. Bates says Philips originally suspended the student for violating their "good conduct policy" until the school board overturned that decision — documented in the meeting minutes from Oct. 4. Several other sources tell KCCI that the student was the child of a school board member.Pekin parent Katie Keith says her child was the target of the slur."My child was called a racial slur, the n-word," Keith said. "We just asked for transparency as to why this has happened and what's going to happen going forward to address racism, and that email was directly sent to the school board president, who did not reply."Keith has four Black children, all of whom either are or were at one time students at Pekin.She says they all dealt with bullies, but they've never had a superintendent make an effort to combat them quite like Philips."The current school board has no intention of upholding any policies they have made it clear that racism and the culture at the school is not one of their top priorities," Keith said.KCCI reached out to all seven of the school board members on Monday, but did not receive a response from any of them. » Download the free KCCI app to get updates on the go: Apple | Google PlayGet the latest headlines from KCCI