Rare News Desk
When students decided to skip school to join the nationwide “Day Without Immigrants” protest, six Southern California teachers found comfort in making snarky remarks on social media about how pleasant their days were without the missing pupils.
Videos by Rare
For educators, it sure was a dumb move.
The “Day Without Immigrants” was designed to protest sharp anti-immigration policies being discussed by President Donald Trump and his administration.
RELATED: “Day Without Immigrants” protest might mean many days of no work for them
Those teachers have all been suspended — albeit with pay. The teachers are all employed at Rubidoux High School in California’s Inland Empire School District. It all started with a self-serving Facebook post by teacher Geoffrey Greer, who wrote:
[…] As for the school system, having my class size reduced by 50% all day long only served to SUPPORT Trump’s initiatives and prove how much better things might be without all this overcrowding.
That’s what you get when you jump on some sort of bandwagon cause as an excuse to be lazy and/or get drunk. Best school day ever.
Greer quickly started to get blasted for his comments, and he deleted the post. However, a student was able to preserve it with a screenshot.
Other teachers at the school then sort of jumped on the bandwagon cause and replied to Greer’s post, according to the Riverside Press Enterprise. The teachers agreed on what a nice day indeed it was without half their students in attendance.
Eighty percent of the school district’s students are Latino or Hispanic.
RELATED: Churches are opening their doors, giving refuge to undocumented immigrants
The teacher in the post below, Robin Riggle, noted that she had 50 absences. Greer offered this reply: “Yup. And I bet your class went a whole lot more smoothly as well.”
Riggle answered back: “Yes, it was a very pleasant day.”
The school district’s superintendent Robert Garcia said he was disappointed by the teachers’ remarks, according to the Washington Post.
“I am aware of and deeply understand the fears and concerns of our students,” Garcia said in a statement. “I am calling on members of our community to come together to assure that our schools remain safe and our student’s voices are heard.”
Rubidoux High School’s principal, Â Juose Luis Araux, posted a video to YouTube addressing the situation, in which he made clear that the views of the suspended teachers did not reflect on the rest of the school’s staff. He promised an investigation of the incident and said that he had faith in the intelligence and capabilities of the students.
Offended students used the teachers’ comments to skip another day of school in protest.
Students march at Mission & Camino Real in Jurupa Valley as it starts to rain pic.twitter.com/KpP3cl78wP
— Alicia Robinson (@ARobWriter) February 17, 2017
It all got the attention of Univision.
https://twitter.com/oxminaox/status/832469950811869184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Later, the teacher, according to the Riverside newspaper, issued this apology on Facebook: “While I stand by my assertion that skipping school is no way to demonstrate one’s value to society, I do apologize for the harsh tone and hurtful structure of the previous message. I hadn’t meant for it to come across as quite so scathing.”
