A California teacher has been recorded on a Zoom call daring parents to ‘come at me’ if they have a problem with the way she’s running her virtual lessons.
Alissa Piro, a teacher at San Marcos High School, was captured ranting at students in a video that was later posted to a private Facebook group, and shared on Twitter by an activist group calling for the full reopening of California schools.
The exasperated educator complains that she is ‘sick to my stomach of parents trying to tell educators how to do their job’.
She goes on to tell one student there’s no need for a ‘white student union’ because whites already ‘get everything.’
Her comments come at a time of heightened tensions between parents, California Governor Gavin Newsom and teachers unions over delays to a return to in-class learning.
A coalition of parents have launched a lawsuit against Newsom and six California school districts seeking eased COVID restrictions and a return to physical classrooms.
Alissa Piro, a teacher at San Marcos High School, dared parents who wished to criticize her teaching methods to ‘come at me’
‘I am so sick to my stomach of parents trying to tell educators how to do their job,’ Piro says in the clip, which was later posted to a Facebook page of parents disaffected by California’s ongoing school shutdown
The clips appear to have been recorded by the family member of a student, and show Piro discussing the ongoing lockdown and school unions.
A student can be heard asking: ‘Where is the white student union?’.
Piro responds: ‘You don’t need a white student union, you get everything.’
The high school teacher then wails on parents who would dare criticize her.
‘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.’
Piro adds that teachers are facing unfair scrutiny by people who don’t understand their profession.
‘I have never once gone to a doctor’s appointment and tried to tell my medical health provider how to treat me,’ she says.
‘You know why, ’cause I know nothing about that. I didn’t get my degree in medicine.’
She then apologizes, saying: ‘I am going off, sorry. This is my go off period.’
Gavin Newsom is facing lawsuits and a recall vote over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in California
Partial school re-openings began in March in schools such as Garfield Elementary School in Oakland. But several lawsuits are underway to force schools to fully reopen at a faster rate
Fox News reported that the mother of one Piro’s students had shown the clips to the Principal Adam Dawson.
The channel reported that Dawson had found Piro’s behavior was ‘inexcusable’, but no further action against her was taken.
The principal did not respond to Fox News request for comment.
According to her Linkedin page, Piro has worked at San Marcos Unified School District since August 2016.
San Marcos is an inland city about 40 miles north of San Diego.
Parents in California have been at loggerheads with the state Government and teachers over its reopening strategy.
After a year of virtual learning, there has been intense debate about how to get students back to class.
A group of parents in North County, which includes northern San Diego and San Marcos, are suing the state for unfairly prohibiting local school districts from reopening.
Last month the state legislator approved a $6.6 billion funding package to assist reopening in-person teaching across the state, including personal protective equipment, ventilation upgrades and COVID-19 testing.
But some parents criticized the package for allowing ongoing at-home learning to continue.
The city of San Francisco filed a lawsuit against its own Board of Education to compel them to release a concrete plan on getting public schools open. It said the lockdowns favored wealthy students, as private schools had reopened already, and violated their constitutional right to attend public school.
Newsom is facing a recall election, in large part due to criticism over his handling of the pandemic.