Coatesville School District in crisis after barrage of racist and obscene texts by administrators.

[enough]

The Coatesville Area School District is a large district in Chester County. The District has a very large African-American population.

The text messages are so egregious that I almost wonder if they can be real. You can get the flavor of the text correspondence by reading the excerpts at the pdf link. The article mentions the racism, but the obscenity is also appalling.

http://www.dailylocal.com/social-affairs/20130922/

The abrupt departure of the Coatesville Area School District superintendent and another senior administrator came two weeks after numerous exchanges of inappropriate and racially-charged text messages were discovered on their district-issued cell phones, and multiple sources have indicated that school board officials were not only aware of the exchanges, but were prepared to allow the pair to remain in their positions until the conduct prompted a criminal investigation, the Daily Local News has learned.

The Coatesville Area School Board is expected to formally vote to approve the resignations of former Superintendent Richard Como and former Director of Athletics and Activities Jim Donato at Tuesday's public meeting. Como announced his “retirement” through a letter posted on the district's website on August 29. Reports of Donato's resignation surfaced several days later. Both came unexpectedly during the first week of the school year.

Text messages exchanged from school-issued cell phone numbers between Como and Donato contained repeated use of a commonly known derogatory phrase referring to African American or black individuals. In one instance, the term was used 14 times in one conversation.

MUCH MORE at link above.

Excerpts of texts:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/169978329/CASD-Transcript-Excerpts

[alfie]

1. That is so sick

What small minds they have. I live in the deep south, don't hear that kind of talk. Guess I run with the wrong crowd??

[Sunlei]

2. I love the way twitter exposes these people. tweets are a ball and chain on their careers forever.

[enough]

3. What I can't understand is how they can be so stupid. Did they actually think

this stuff would be private? Especially on school-issued phones.

[Sunlei]

4. actually texts. And I think this was and is the way some people really are in this world.

Anyone laid off or fired in that school district has a heck of a good legal case.

Or as those idiots said about those who lost their jobs, "good hanging"

They should not be allowed to resign! they should be fired.

[enough]

5. The local paper is calling for their firing, and the resignation of the School Board. (nt)

[gopiscrap]

6. Jesus Christ what in the fuck is wrong with people

[bbernardini]

7. I can't win. I teach in Philadelphia, and live in Coatesville.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't seen any evidence that their behavior is representative of the district's administration, faculty and staff as a whole. All I know is that I better stay from the website of the paper mentioned in the OP, as the blatant racism that's sure to rear its ugly head in the comment section will hurt my brain.

[MadrasT]

8. Actually many of the comments express digust and outrage.

I have never noticed that Coatesville was an especially racist place, and I have spent a lot of time there. I am wondering where these two jokers came from before they were hired on at Coatesville... locals don't act like this. At least not any locals with whom I am familiar.

Though I am aware there were some complaints about racism within the police department, too, so maybe I am just blind to it?

Lordy, 100 years since Zachariah Walker and we're still acting like cretins. (shakes head)

[bbernardini]

9. Oh, it's not the Coatesvilleians (?) themselves that are racist...

...just many of the commenters who frequent that webpage.

[MadrasT]

11. True enough.

Comments in the Daily Lack Of News continually makes me shake my head. (I say that in jest, not to disparage the paper, but it's an old joke amongst my friends because there is so rarely anything *newsworthy* going on around here.)

"Coatesvillians"... that's great.

I've lived here for almost 10 years and I love the crap out of our scrappy little town. Folks here are so kind to me. Black, Mexican, white, everybody here has been unfailingly and remarkably *kind* to me.

I moved here from Wayne and I was so happy to get away from the Main Line blue-blood snobs.

[enough]

10. I think that's why this story is so disturbing. I also live around here,

and it's no way a paradise, but people are trying to do their best with a lot of understanding and even friendship across a lot of diversity of various kinds. The idea that people in charge of the school district feel free to talk in this racist and obscene manner means that there's something rotten in the structure, not in the ordinary people of the area.

The comments at the newspaper website show that there are a lot of people who also see the outrage here.

[MadrasT]

12. I know, right?

Not paradise... but I also see lots of "friendship across diversity" as you noted.

Yeah, I think it's a problem with the structure, too. Regular folks around here just do not behave that way.

Edit to add -- and you're right -- that is what makes it extra shocking. It's not normal for around here. It would be outrageous anywhere, but it just doesn't compute.

[bbernardini]

13. My wife told me many of the comments about this story on the local ABC affiliate's website are...

...about "freedom of speech". The "freedom of speech means freedom from consequences" crowd strikes again.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

14. I taught in this district, and it seems the top level administrators have been arrogant, corrupt

assholes for decades.

Folks who are new to the Coatesville Area School District (CASD) may be wondering why the abrupt exit of the superintendent and the athletic director during the first week of school has spawned so much negative speculation: Regrettably, long-term residents have become accustomed to sudden departures shrouded in secrecy.

In 1999, former superintendent Louis Laurento left in mid-contract amid allegations of mismanagement; ex-interim superintendent Samuel DeSimone was dismissed in 2001 after a few months on the job and conflict over his state pension payments; after months of discord, former superintendent James Scarnati resigned in 2005 with an agreement that included a “nondisparagement clause” – a way to make sure no one talked.

When I first heard about this latest incident, I wasn't the least bit surprised that another superintendent was leaving under a cloud of suspicion, but even I was shocked by the astonishingly racist and sexist content of the texts. Even without that sexism and racism it's hard to fathom two grown men having a text exchange that sounds so very much like it's coming from two junior high school mean girls, but as it is it sounds like two junior high klan members.

The harder you worked in this district, the less you were respected. Teachers were treated like irresponsible, irrational children. It was all about who was tight with the power structure. Oh, the stories I could tell...

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

15. The board just voted to accept the scumbags' resignations, thus preserving their

golden parachutes. What a surprise.

The Coatesville Area School Board voted Tuesday to accept the resignations of two former senior administrators in a meeting packed with more than a thousand angry parents and taxpayers who demanded the board fire the pair instead.

The vote came after more than three hours of public comment that contained numerous impassioned calls for the board to deny the resignations of former Superintendent Richard Como and Director of Athletics and Activities Jim Donato. The fiery crowd also vocally called for the entire school board to step down throughout the meeting.

The public comment came from a diverse group of parents, taxpayers and district students. Every speaker asked the board to deny the resignations, and most called for the board to step down.

[MadrasT]

16. OK that's it.

I was holding off on condemning the whole school board but yeah, they all have to go.

This is my tax money they are fucking with now. I don't want to pay these assholes a penny, fuck their parachutes, let 'em freefall.

I was afraid to show up at the meeting... tempers are boiling.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

17. Looks like I posted in haste, and Denato will not get his pension. At lest for now.

"Donato will not receive a pension because he was not of retirement age at the time of his resignation, Campbell said."

Still, the bastard will get hired by some racist school board somewhere else (they'd love him out in Pennsyltucky) and will eventually get it. CASD bigwigs who leave the district in disgrace always do one way or another.

There's more to come, by the way. Rumor has it that there's a third CASD employee involved. Probably another high level jerkoff. And, there have to be more texts. They didn't just start their special digital relationship one day in June.

[MadrasT]

19. I did see that when I read the full article.

So there is that.

Still, they both should have been terminated - or at least the decision postponed pending any investigation(s).

[bbernardini]

18. I think one of them might have voted against it.

I've only had a chance to glance at one of the articles, but I'm pretty sure I read that.

[MadrasT]

20. Yes, there was one no vote.

I believe it was the woman who is in charge of the local chapter of the NAACP?

And it seems the two board members who were teleconferenced in did not get to vote (or their votes were not recorded?)

Wow, are they handling this poorly.

(shakes head)

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

21. Nothing new in the CASD. They have a long history of this sort of thing, though this might be

the most disgusting episode.