At least a half-dozen parents are withdrawing their children from the private Evangel Christian Academy in Rosedale after two former teachers accused top administrators of making racist comments.

Parents say the allegations have added to an unstable atmosphere at the school, and that administrators will not respond to their concerns.

The principal, E. Lamar McDaniel, repeatedly denied the allegations during a recent interview at the school. "I don't have any trouble with the coloreds," he said. "I've even stayed in some of their houses" while visiting missionaries in Africa.

McDaniel said that the controversy is being driven by vengeance, and that the two teachers who leveled the allegations - John and Dawn Runk - are playing "the race card."

"There has never been any kind of racial discrimination at this school," McDaniel said. "We are trying to diversify our student population. As a matter of fact, we'd like to find some Korean children to attend our school and raise the bar. They are such good students."

But one parent, Kim Willis, said this is her daughter's first - and last - year at the academy. She said she notified the school early this month that she would withdraw her child in two weeks.

"I was warned about the racial tension at this school by the pastor at my church," she said. "I should have listened."

The school, on Rossville Boulevard, opened in 1978 and is affiliated with the Evangel Cathedral Church of God, a Pentecostal congregation next door. The academy has more than 80 pupils in kindergarten through eighth grade, and about the same number of children in its day care center. About 85 percent of the children are African-American or immigrants from Africa.

The dispute between the school's administrators and the two teachers came to the forefront this month when John Runk and his wife, Dawn, lost their jobs and accused school and church officials of being prejudiced and making racist statements. The Runks are white.

After being let go, John Runk stood in front of the school gates on three days, waving a sign that read: "Help Us Get Rid of the Prejudice at ECA."

In conversations with parents dropping off and picking up their children, Runk told them there was a "prejudicial tone" to remarks he heard uttered by school administrators at meetings and in a meeting with the church's pastor, the Rev. Michael K. McDermott, who is McDaniel's son-in-law.

Runk said the remarks by administrators made reference to how "dark the classrooms are" and the fact that the school "needed a better clientele of people." Teachers also were admonished by administrators not to leave one particular classroom unattended because there were about a half-dozen black male pupils with one white girl, he said.

Runk said he and his wife were fired because they warned school officials about making racist comments. "We stood in the cold to prove our point," he said. "We have nothing to gain."

The Runks' claims are disputed by school and church officials: McDaniel; his wife, Vice Principal Nelia McDaniel, and school administrator Joy A. Shinn; and the two pastors at Evangel Cathedral, McDermott and his wife, Rebecca.

The school and the Runks agree that John Runk was terminated during the Thanksgiving holiday break, but disagree as to why. A part-time physical education and health teacher at Evangel Christian Academy since early this year, Runk said he returned home from Thanksgiving vacation to find a letter of termination taped to his door.

E. Lamar McDaniel called Runk "contrary" and said the teacher had problems with female authority figures. "He worked hard, but he was insubordinate," McDaniel said.

The departure of Runk's wife, kindergarten teacher Dawn Runk, also is in dispute. The Runks say she was dismissed early this month; school administrators say she resigned.

"Dawn resigned to me in the office on the Monday after Thanksgiving," Shinn said. "She was very distraught ... so I asked her to leave the premises."

The McDaniels, Shinn and the McDermotts say they are being maligned by the former teachers who are trying to incite parents to remove their children from the school.

"I don't want the school to close," John Runk said. "They just need to replace the administrators with appropriate school officials."

Some parents are angry and puzzled because they say they can't get direct answers from school administrators.

"I didn't get anywhere with them when I asked to have a parents' meeting," said Nico Washington, who is removing her daughter from the school. "They are against a parents' meeting because they're afraid parents will lash out."

Washington said the principal ordered her off school property last week when she asked parents to sign a petition requesting the meeting.

"Mr. McDaniel was extremely rude, pointing his finger in my face," she said. "He told me I had no right to speak to any parents about anything. He said he was sick of the parents acting like devils in the hallways."

McDaniel said he told Washington that she had no right to stand inside the school because it was "not acceptable. We don't allow rabble-rousers in the building."

The Rev. John Melhorn, a minister from Essex and a former Bible teacher at the school, said that although he did not hear officials make racist remarks, "I've heard language used by the principal that was ... more elitist, more of an us vs. them tone."

Melhorn, who is wrestling with whether to keep his child enrolled at the school, said he worked there for five months, but was not asked to return.

"They have had a high turnover of teachers," he said.

Former teacher Arthur Byrd said he heard racist remarks while he was teaching music and drama at the school: "The principal often made comments about 'people like you' and then told me he didn't want all of the music I was teaching to be black, although I was told to teach gospel music," said Byrd, who isn't sure why he and his wife, Cynthia, an elementary teacher, were let go last year.

Byrd said he had a disagreement with Nelia McDaniel last school year when he signed out one afternoon after his classes were finished. "I'm a 310-pound black man," Byrd said, "and she said, 'Look boy, you do what I tell you to do.'"