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Several New York teachers have been put on leave after sending "racist and demeaning" texts about students at a school with a significant minority population, NBC News reports.
The public school teachers involved in the offensive text exchange work at Rochester, New York's Enrico Fermi School 17, which houses a largely Black and Latino population of pre-kindergarteners through eighth-graders.
On Friday (May 27), Rochester City School District Superintendent Lesli Myers-Small said in a statement, “I am horrified at the racist and demeaning references and language used to describe children … our children!" Myers-Small added, "The staff members have been put on leave and the District will use all forms of available discipline up to and including termination."
According to Democrat & Chronicle, students discovered the texts while making a video on one of the teachers' phones. The Enrico Fermi students saw a group text notification naming one of their fellow peers.
The texts in question employed vulgar slurs directed toward children and their parents. One of the texts revealed teachers wishing one girl would "beat the [explexite] out of" another student.
Another message suggested sending out an automated phone call to insult families from the school.
"I'm calling to remind you that you are a [expletive] parent and your kid is a [expletive] like you. Thanks," one of the texts reads, per Democrat & Chronicle.
Rochester Teachers Association President Adam Urbanski said in a statement that he was unaware of how many teachers were involved in the group text exchange.
“I want to make it clear that we strongly believe that everyone, and especially our students, are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect,” Urbanski said. “We are also committed to fairness and due process and the investigation is still ongoing.”
The obscene texts come weeks after Rochester school officials revealed they were investigating a white teacher who told Black students to pick cotton and put on handcuffs during lessons on slavery.
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