Bullying has gone way beyond the playground.
Three outspoken parents have reportedly been targeted with personalized, racist hate mail after advocating publicly for the safe reopening of schools in Santa Monica and Malibu.
The stunning revelation came nearly two hours into a virtual parent town hall meeting Monday night entitled, “Exposing the Culture of Retaliation at SMMUSD.”
One of the notes, shared publicly for the first time, read:
“You are a piece of (excrement). You are a 30-something a-hole who lived in a three bedroom, three bathroom townhome in Santa Monica which is worth over a million bucks and you are nothing but an f—ing (occupation). Your wife is an f—ing stay-at-home (synonym for prostitute).
“Have you ever set foot in the classroom, schmuck? Do you realize how hard teachers work to educate students. Yet you and other ‘open up Santa Monica schools’ mother f—ers believe everything you hear…. Who the f— do you think you are? Do you want a medal? I think there is a place for you in Hell. I hope the Devil makes room for you and your family… I really hope you and your wife get COVID. I hope there are no vaccines for the likes of you.”
The anonymous F bomber also railed against his victim’s ethnicity and wished harm to everyone in his home country.
“That letter took a huge amount of time as well as a huge amount of research into the person and their family,” said Houman David Hemmati, who shared the information on behalf of one of the recipients.
“It made racist comments, death threats. This person and their family had to relocate for a while. They were gravely afraid someone was going to act on this.
“This is not the type of dialogue that we are supposed to have. This didn’t just come from some random individual. This is someone who put a huge amount of thought into this and did so for two other people at the same time. They put it in the U.S. Mail which is actually a federal crime.”
Nearly 60 parents participated in the meeting, which was hosted by local activist Maria Loya.
“This is a toxic environment that is supported by SMMUSD,” she said.
Loya — who also serves as president of a Latino parents group at Santa Monica High School — invited members of the community to share their personal experiences of being bullied or intimidated by the SMMUSD.
Parents took turns venting frustrations about interactions with PTAs, school administrators and board members.
Lincoln Middle School parent Wendy Dembo noted her frustration with the lack of art classes.
Samohi parent Nikki Kolhoff explained how she had been banned from interacting with the school’s (unofficial) Facebook page after expressing views that did not align with the PTA and administration’s agendas.
And a school site custodian named Rufus offered prerecorded video testimony of “bullying” that occurs in his workplace.
“We don’t get respect as custodians,” he said. “I’m not speaking on no hero’s pay. I’m speaking on management with the disrespect. With the lying. The pittin’ us against each other. Pittin’ us against the teachers. They will come to us saying the teacher said this or the teacher said that… We go talk to the teachers, the teachers don’t know nothing about it.
“I’m speaking on the custodian supervisor. The management team. If you try to stick up for yourself they will bully you, blackball you. I know this personally. I’ve gotten threatened by a manager and I am still waiting two months to have a sit down.
“You guys need to sit down, management teams and train them how to be respectful. They want respect. We deserve respect. We’re puttin’ our lives on the line by coming to work every day. But then when you stand up and say something, they want to lie and comer it up. They want to put you on the back burner and kick the can down the road.”
The meeting coincides with an ongoing effort to remove four current members of the SMMUSD School Board.
Editor’s note: A moderator for the page ‘Samohi (Santa Monica High School)’, which boasts 2,100 members, reached out to clarify that it is run by parents and not school administration. The page has, however, been previously linked to the school’s official website and at least one solicitation has been sent to all parents from an official SamohiPTSA email address asking them to join.
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