Three faculty members admit sharing disparaging messages about students

CUMBERLAND, R.I. — Three teachers have resigned from Blackstone Valley Prep after the charter school confirmed allegations that they posted hurtful messages about some of their students.

The school has not identified the teachers who left. The messages were shared in a Google Doc with the entire school community on Monday.

Jeremy Chiappetta, executive director of the BVP network, said the school has not completed its internal investigation and there could be more disciplinary measures taken.

The teachers who resigned were trained by Teach for America (TFA), an alternative teacher training program that places young adults in schools across the country. They were suspended by that program.

Teach for America offers five to seven weeks of summer training before someone is hired by schools. Typically, these students are recent college graduates. TFA requires a two-year commitment.

Chiappetta said the school launched an investigation, suspended the teachers, and, on Tuesday, confronted them. The school accepted their resignations after confirming the allegations were true.

In the expletive-ridden messages, teachers spoke casually about students, calling them "idiots," and "dumb [expletives]."

In an interview Wednesday, Chiappetta said school leaders met with high school students Tuesday morning and offered counseling to teachers and students reeling from the teachers' actions.

"What I heard at the meeting was a strong sense of anger, disappointment and sadness that this took place," he said. "The youth feel like they have been building this high school. They feel deeply wounded by the actions of a few."

"I cannot express my sadness, my disappointment and my frustration with this entire situation," Chiappetta added. "I am a parent of three kids [at BVP]. I tell my faculty at the beginning of every year, every one of you has to be good enough for all of our kids. We fell short."

The school has scheduled two meetings with families on Monday to "begin the process of repair and rebuilding," Chiappetta said. They will not be open to the public.

Chiappetta said he told the school's board of directors Wednesday that the school was reviewing all of its policies to "prevent this very tragic thing from happening again."

Asked if any parents had withdrawn their children from BVP because of this incident, Chiappetta said not to his knowledge.

At about 9 a.m. Monday, students, faculty and staff received an email from a teacher's email address with a link to a Google Doc. The document includes 18 pages of screenshots from the inter-office messaging application Slack. The school said the teacher's email was hacked and he did not intentionally share the messages.

Among the excerpts of what teachers allegedly texted on Slack:

"Man I wish we could hit them," writes one teacher. Another responds, "Move to Arizona ... Start your own charter and commence with the flogging." She responds: "lol"

"I want to be crystal clear, many of the comments written are deeply disturbing and offensive," Chiappetta wrote in an open letter shared with The Providence Journal. "... I am deeply saddened and disappointed. Parents put their trust in teachers and the school, and that trust has been violated."

In an email Wednesday, a Teach for America spokesperson said the language and actions of the teachers are "not reflective of Teach For America’s core values that we expect our teachers to uphold."

The email also said that, "These teachers are employed by Blackstone Valley Prep and we support the action they are taking to investigate and address their conduct, and the corps members who have resigned have been suspended from Teach For America."

—jtempera@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7121

On Twitter: @jacktemp

—lborg@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7823

On Twitter: @lborgprojocom