Students and parents in San Marcos, Calif., are outraged over a video of a teacher berating students and parents for wanting to return to in-person learning.
Newly released video of a @SanMarcosUSD HS teacher going off on students and their parents over distance learning and other issues. Originally posted to FB. Apparently this is a common occurrence. pic.twitter.com/pjEN80kLNh
— Reopen California Schools (@ReopenCASchools) April 12, 2021
The video went viral over the weekend and parents and students are speaking out about the unhinged English teacher, Alissa Piro.
“It was upsetting and actually pretty shocking” Kimberly Imhoff told “Fox News Primetime.” “Whether our kids are in the classroom or they’re on a Zoom call, we’re putting our kids in the care of the teachers and we’re expecting that they’re going to be treated with respect and courtesy, and that’s clearly not what was going on during that particular Zoom class,” she said.
Piro, who teaches English, appears to be referencing an ongoing lawsuit launched by a coalition of parents against Gov. Gavin Newsom and six North Country school districts seeking eased COVID restrictions and an accelerated return to physical classrooms, though local unions say doing so would constitute judicial overreach.
“If your parent wants to talk to me about their profession and their opinion on their profession, I would love to hear that…,” she says.
“However, if your parent wants to come talk to me about how I’m not doing a good enough job in distance learning based on what you need as an individual? Just dare them to come at me. Because I am so sick to my stomach of parents trying to tell educators how to do their job.”
The video was filmed by a family member of a student and posted to a Facebook page in favor of reopening the schools. The school district has recently approved a “hybrid” plan with students spending two days a week in class. The plan was supposed to be temporary but the teachers’ union is insisting it be kept for the duration of the year.
Several students have commented on Piro’s rants and the intimidation in her class if you don’t share her political beliefs.
“She started berating me about how as a white male I get everything and it’s my duty to look out for minorities and all these racist remarks against whites and males,” one student recalled. “She later called me a moron.”
A former student told Fox News that Piro would regularly demean teens who vocalized political viewpoints that differed from her own.
The student recalled being afraid to participate in Piro’s class, a sentiment that was shared by more than three students who spoke exclusively to Fox. She said most of her classmates knew they had to write assignments that were in line with Piro’s political views to pass the course and spare themselves the embarrassment of being belittled before their peers.
“I knew I had to change my political views just to please her and get a passing grade” she told Fox News. “She’d either yell or fail you, or make us feel small for what we believe in.”
“She’s a good teacher when she’s teaching but these rants aren’t new,” she said.
Piro doesn’t represent the majority of teachers in the district. One parent believes most teachers want to come back to class but are under the thumbs of their union leaders.
“I think the majority of teachers do want to return,” Imhoff said. “What we’re seeing here is the school unions, that are very powerful, who have other agendas speaking, I think out of turn for the teachers.”
Imhoff said that while there are “some outliers like possibly the video we just saw,” she regularly hears from teachers who support resuming in-person instruction full time.
At the end of the day, Imhoff said she believes it’s a “lack of leadership at the district level and a battle with the union that’s keeping our kids from the classroom.”
“The saddest thing to me is that she created an environment in that Zoom classroom for some of the other students to comment mean things,” one parent told Fox News.
The union will probably want to give an award to Piro. Indoctrinating students, showing them the errors in their thinking, demanding their views align with hers — she’ll get “Teacher of the Year” for sure.
