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Mom files legal claim against Palmdale School District over teacher’s allegedly racist Zoom rant [updated]

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PALMDALE – The mother of a Black sixth-grader filed a legal claim against the Palmdale School District Thursday over an alleged racist rant directed at her son and his family by a teacher who failed to sign off Zoom following a student-teacher session.

In the video, the teacher can be heard disparaging the family and referring in a negative way to their ethnicity, according to the claim, which is a precursor to a lawsuit.

“The horrible comments the teacher made in the video are truly heartbreaking for a mother to hear and for her young son to hear,” said attorney John C. Taylor, who represents the claimant.

“It’s unthinkable that an educator would mock and belittle this family and there is no doubt that this incident has scarred them,” he said. “All children are entitled to receive an educational experience free of discrimination and this video has demonstrated what minority students often face behind the scenes today.”

A PSD representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Lawyer Neil Gehlawat, who also represents the claimant, said that like many parents whose children have struggled to transition to online schooling during the coronavirus pandemic, the claimant reached out for help and discovered that her son was allegedly being treated unfairly because of his skin color.

The woman’s  son, a sixth-grader at Desert Willow Fine Arts, Science and Technology Magnet Academy in Palmdale, struggled with his online platform and had difficulty accessing the system for instruction, according to her claim.

The boy’s mother says she contacted school officials often for help and was instructed to follow up with her child’s teachers, and the educator in question responded by scheduling a Zoom call with the boy and his mother.

The teacher accidentally stayed signed onto Zoom at the end of the session and began a “racist, inflammatory rant” about the boy and his mother that went on for more than a half-hour, according to the claim.

The boy’s mother recorded the rant because she could not believe what she was hearing and thought no one would believe her since the comments were so outrageous, according to her attorneys, who said the teacher can be seen drafting an email to the boy’s other teachers in which she repeatedly mocks and denigrates his mother.

The teacher went on to call the family “a piece of (expletive),” and said the boy had learned to lie to everyone and make excuses because “this is what Black people do,” according to the claim.

Clips from the footage were released by the Taylor & Ring law firm and can be viewed here. (Warning: the video contains strong language.)

UPDATE: Asked in an email about the claim, PSD Superintendent Raul Maldonado referred to a February statement by district spokesman David Garcia that the teacher in question resigned from her job in January after being confronted about her statements.

39 comments for "Mom files legal claim against Palmdale School District over teacher’s allegedly racist Zoom rant [updated]"

  1. Everyone that claims racism without hearing the recording is racist themselves

    Let’s see the audio/video

    Of course we will never hear it to judge for ourselves

  2. Ms. Newman, the teacher, exhibited behavior so unprofessional that had she not resigned she should have been fired. And if the school, Desert Willow Fine Arts, Science and Technology Magnet Academy, is a place where children are regularly vilified by email then the school needs more than enhanced training might provide. Finally, if the Palmdale community consists largely of people who espouse most of the views in this comment section, then the mother of the 12 year old should put her son in a school that is safe for her son and she should sue the heck out of the community and the school district so that she can afford to move her son to a better and perhaps private school where teaching does not involve demeaning its students.

    • Cumulus, have you seen the recording of the teacher or did you observe first hand?

      I think the recording should be public as it’s the public that pays. It should also be made public so the people can see what goes on. Making the recording public will create the most positive impact on the community and show everyone something needs to change.

      Short of the recording being public I must say it’s all total bullshit. Everyone lies.

      • I never heard the Enword being used nor did I here anything implying that her race(whatever it may be) is dominant or matters more than others. She was being stereotypical and venting about how certain thing aren’t being taken seriously in school by certain people. Everybody has done that but she left the audio on. The audio/video is played in 4 segments. If there’s more in between those segments, then I might have a different point of view. Personally, If I sued everyone for every negative thing said about me and my kind, I’d be stinkin rich. It may hurt, but if its not blocking my furtherance in achieving goals thats already difficult enough without racial negativity, Ill get over it. It ain’t like I’m an angel that spews positivity everywhere I go and neither do many people in this town. Maybe a sincere apology from the teacher would alleviate the situation and we can learn from this as we continue going about our lives. The worlds not ending for the child and there aint nothing he cant do if he puts his mind to it.

    • “sue the community”

      Ummmm no. People can have opinions without being sued for them. You cannot “sue the community” because you don’t like what people write in a comments section of an online publication. You obviously don’t understand the legal system or how it works.

  3. Mostly all of you commenting are just as RACIST as the teacher! This family are not the only families having trouble with the internet. I work from home and in the beginning I had major problems with the internet when others did not. Thankful a technician came to my home and suggested me buying my own Router (gave me suggestions) because the one given by Provider is not the best. I did it and have not had problems since. I was lucky to get a technician that offered the suggestion, this family may not have been so lucky. So for you on here talking about they just wanted money, the point is this lady was out of line and it makes you wonder how she treats her students of color. The lawsuit has a provision where they’re looking at her grading system, so it’s about was she being fair all this time. We know their are a lot more teachers like her still working just like you racist people on here. You all are sad and pathetic!

    • Ive had my share of schooling and Ive seen the teachers own kids get crucified in front of us students for not getting with the program and just clowning around. It even made me feel bad on their behalf. They sure didnt get a free pass just because they’re the teachers kids and are white. It happens to everybody including myself. If you get with the school program, the school program will get with you. If you treat it like its a waste of time or unneeded and dont take the chance to indulge in the knowledge offered, how in Heck can they do the same for you when there are hungry students waiting for knowlege and learning at the desk. Why not try legitimate home studies? It can be beneficial.

    • The entire record should be available and then we can judge. There were some parts about the mother according teacher’s call that I saw on single news website while every other just edits it out. If the teacher assumes they are lying just because they are black then that’s racist… If she just comments on something that (sure thinks) is happening, then it’s just a commentary. The whole recording is necessary. And even then we already know that it’s not even close to a full context. And we will never know the full context it this case.

      But if she is racist then I’m glad she got caught. But we won’t ever know for sure.

  4. Interesting that a teacher who does not believe this student had problems with this technology platform, has a “problem” logging off the same technology platform thereby allowing her racism to be recorded.

  5. If HALF the effort required- to record the teacher and contact /cooperate with a lawyer to get a lawsuit going….less than half of this effort, was put into ANY responding communication to this teacher, this would NEVER HAD HAPPEND..
    Now mom can relax in the arms of pity, continue to do even less than nothing, and will be compensated handsomely for it all.
    With hard work anything can be achieved!

    • I’m sure there’s some truth to your comment. Never-the-less, I’m happy to hear the mother recorded the rant. Makes it tough to say it didn’t happen.

  6. hatred emanates from the page as I read these comments. Pure Hatred. The voices on the mom’s tape just put the hatred in a new medium. These are public school teachers being recorded revealing the hatred they usually hide from the rest of us. I hope they all get FIRED and have a real bad time finding new jobs. Their salaries are paid by the public. FIRE THESE TEACHERS NOW

  7. I hope these tapes result in a sweep of layoffs in Palmdale. These teachers need to relocate to Alabama where they will fit right in with 1950s mentality white supremacists. Hire a whole new staff in Palmdale, eradicate this blatant racism. They feel so comfortable talking trash like this about “black” parents when they think no one else is listening. Astonishing. Hope the mother gets a HUGE settlement.

    • Oh, so now its about money? Pathetic. She is entitled to say whatever she wants here in God-blessed America as much as black people do. It aint like she’s wearing white lives matter tshirts and assaulting people that dont respect WLM. BLM has done plenty of that and some. Too bad she forgot to turn off the camera and audio but hey, it aint like she killed someone or spilled out hate speech, she just ventilated and expressed heavy disappointment in certain people not finishing there homework and always making excuses rather than taking responsibility for actions or lack thereof and always smelling like marijuana. Every race has corks and screws that are noticed and pointed out by other races. You got yours. I got mine.

      • But its racist hate speech. she does have the right to speak as she feels, but her employer has the right to levy consequences for what she says as they see fit. So scream free speech all you want, then go ahead and reap what you sow.

        • Like giving people money that are gonna back bite racially in the future? Because that’s exactly what they want. Most of them want to capitalize on lawsuits and live the easy life just because they’re easily butthurt. Hate speech influences violence. (Take Hitler for example.) But She was only ventilating about ongoing patterns which she admitted was done by other people as well. “Minorities” aren’t the only ones that hear such kind of speech. Many others have needed a wake up call to not repeat history that is sending this American economy into a gangster dump. They need to get over it, take responsibility and continue educating themselves to eventually rise above and prove statistics wrong. This country is in demand for that.

      • 1. How did he smell like marijuana through the computer screen?? Its very likely The teacher has never met this student in person since they have been doing online school for over a year. So what are you talking about?
        2. What does BLM have to do with this child? not ALL black people even support BLM and the fact you think these two separate things are even related just because they both involve black people shows your prejudice and/or racism
        3. This shouldn’t even have to be said but children of all races don’t complete homework and lie about.

    • This should NOT be about money. Why should a Palmdale taxpayer cough up for the mis-deeds of a teacher? I surely don’t want to pay for it. We pay enough in taxes.
      I’ll let you pay for it.

      • Nevermind social justice or saying sorrys, or being verbally disciplined. Money will take care of it all… Aaaaahhhh!!! At who’s expense indeed.

    • The truth as in black people lie more than white people? Please cite evidence for your claims!!!

    • The ironic part is that she lied to school staff when caught, which was also recorded. Clearly she is the untrustworthy one.

  9. Your sins will find you out. Anybody excusing this in the comments above is also a racist. This is new technology, parents aren’t used to getting calls from non school numbers, and for a teacher to talk so disparagingly about any precious young student is sick. Good teachers have empathy and care for all of their students even if one ( not saying this child is) might be hard to work with or misbehave. We are teachers dedicating our lives for each child to grow and learn and bloom. If you are burnt out and talking crap about kids and families to anybody around you that will listen, it’s time to resign. This teacher’s name and the two she was speaking to that were not questioning or bothered by her racism should be put in public. I was raised by a KKK enthusiast who tried to push his beliefs on me, and I love all my precious children. Once I was only going to give a treat to the kids who finished their work on time and it happened to be only four african american kids that didnt, other african americans did, but I sure didn’t single out a group of one color because I knew it could look the wrong way and be taken as racist and it wasn’t to cover my butt, it was not to hurt my kids feelings. So I offered a second chance to earn the candy for anybody late finishing up and that was to answer some bonus trivia like quiz questions and I made sure not to allow anything that could even be construed by the sensitive to be racist even if it was just coincidental to happen in my classroom. If it had been four white kids I might not have thought about there being an issue and that’s not reverse racism. Because race would not have been thought about in that case because it’s not such a tender painful issue with a long history of hurt behind it. And it wasn’t favoritism of my african american kids. It was empathy and awareness of the racism embedded in our culture. And NOBODY had any idea of the situation but me and my kids got to be kids, as they should be. And in other cases where it was a mix of kids that didn’t finish, they learned the consequence and didn’t get the candy on other days. I made an exception on one day to avoid any unneeded bullying or pain or sense that they were being racially categorized by me. And as a KKK enthusiasts daughter, I’ve always known to be sensitive like that cause I know what’s going on with a lot of white people behind the scenes and that we all have stereotypes and prejudice even if it doesn’t come from a place of hate cause our brains like to group things together. It’s up to us to be aware that the stereotypes are not true for all and be ethical and conscious of our actions. And we can do that in seconds in our minds and act accordingly. And ALWAYS stand up and question people who may be passively racist without realizing it and use Passive Resistance and a strong stance to fight those that are actively racist with hate in their hearts.

  10. “…a teacher who failed to sign off Zoom following a student-teacher session.”

    A hot mic/video session…

  11. I watched the videos. As bad as these comments might be, the mother looks worse now. It looks like a damn wasn’t given at all about her child’s education.