'I just started crying," she says after seeing the leaked screenshots. "I guess he just doesn't like me, and I guess none of the teachers like me at all.”

CUMBERLAND, R.I. — When Hudson Deighan met her Blackstone Valley Prep High School teacher mentor last year, she was relieved to find that he shared her love of books and her dislike of author John Green.

“I thought I had a personal relationship with him,” Hudson, 16, said on Tuesday. “We’ve had conversations about life, our families. I trusted him.”

So, she confided in him.

She struggles with spelling — something she is very self-conscious about — and sought his help with editing. He was never mean about it, “he’d just say, ‘Oh you spelled that wrong’ and we’d fix it,” she said.

For the first time since first grade, the impairment wasn’t embarrassing, she said, she could work through it.

At about 9 a.m. Monday, her feelings changed. Students, faculty and staff at the charter school received a mass email from a teacher with a link to a Google Doc that contained private messages about students and their parents from teachers at the school.

The school has said the teacher’s email was hacked, and apparently someone used that address to send the document. Some staff members have been suspended, according to an email from Jeremy Chiappetta, the executive director.

Deighan, and her father Dr. Scout (who does not use a first name), shared the Google document with The Providence Journal. In it are 18 pages of screenshots from Slack, a messaging app that allows interoffice communications among staff members. The Journal is not identifying the teachers involved at this time.

In a message time stamped June 14 10:13 a.m. on one screenshot — which aligns with one of Hudson’s weekly meetings with her mentor, she said — the teacher writes: “Here’s how Hudson spelled Ta-Nehisi Coates: Tonahese quotes.”

Minutes later, another teacher responds: “[expletive] idiot.”

“When I saw my name I just started crying,” Hudson said, exhaling. “I thought I was straightforward with him and he’d be straightforward with me. But I guess he just doesn’t like me, and I guess none of the teachers like me at all.”

The messages reveal a different side of some educators at Blackstone Valley Prep High School, said Hudson, and her friend, a 15-year-old student who did not wish to be identified. One where teachers refer to students as “dumb [expletives],” “idiots,” and “toxic." And, where the details of a student’s academic performance are joked about in group messages chock full of “lol”s and emoticons.

“It's just damaging to think that the people that are encouraging you are just behind your back saying, ‘She can’t do it, she’s such a dumb [expletive],’” said Hudson. “I was building confidence, slowly and surely, but now they’ve wrecked that with a few messages.”

In emails, Jen LoPiccolo, the school’s director of external affairs, said “immediate action was taken and an internal review is being conducted.”

When asked to provide a number of teachers suspended, or to confirm the screen-shot message received by The Journal was part of the investigation, LoPiccolo said she was not taking interviews and that, “HR policy does not allow me to comment on the content of the review or on individual teachers.”

Dr. Scout, Hudson’s father, said he was alerted to the messages by a text from a member of the staff on Monday.

“The hacking is not your problem,” said Dr. Scout in a subsequent interview. “The problem is the aggressively toxic environment your teachers have created for your youth.”

The 15-year-old was not named in the leaked documents. But she worries, she said.

“These are just the recent messages,” she said. “What did they say about me?”

Here are some excerpts of what teachers allegedly shared on the messaging app Slack:

"Man I wish we could hit them," writes one teacher. Another responds, "Move to Arizona. Though really no school districts allow, by state law you are allowed to. Start your own charter and commence with the flogging." She responds: "lol"

"Did you ever hear from Hudson's mom?" asks one teacher. "I did not," responded another. "What a loser. Truly. There is more to success than where you go to school. Clearly Columbia doesn't provide access to parenting programs, or if they do, she didn't take advantage," he writes back.

"Lying [expletive] scum," writes one teacher of a failing student's parent, using a Spanish curse word. She continued, in all caps, "I CANNOT WITH HER I HOPE HER STUPID SON FAILS ALL OF HIS CLASSES."

"HE IS FAILING FIVE CLASSES," writes one teacher. Another responds, "[Expletive]IDIOT. Let him know if he [expletive] up again he will be in my HR. And I will not be so pleasant."

jtempera@providencejournal.com

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On Twitter: @jacktemp