A principal has apologized and taken “full responsibility” for instigating turmoil at a best-performing Boston elementary school after he decided to include communist dictators on a bulletin board celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month.
Brendan McGrath, just weeks into his first year at the Perry School in Southie, says the display has been removed, admitting that the bulletin board proved problematic and raised sharp concerns from parents and staffers.
The board featured illustrations of Cuban President Fidel Castro and Argentine President Juan Peron and revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevera. Each poster included quotes from the figures. Historians have put the death total under the communist regimes in the tens of thousands.
Other iconic Hispanic characters were also displayed, such as singer-songwriter Shakira, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Hall of Fame baseball player Roberto Clemente.
Scores of parents, staffers and community members took exception to Castro, Peron and Che Guevera being included, raising the alarm over whether McGrath is fit to be a principal and whether politics will be entering classrooms at the kindergarten-grade 6 school.
McGrath came forward on Friday, addressing the disturbance in an emailed letter he sent to the “Perry School Community.” He did not name Castro, Peron and Che Guevera specifically, but he acknowledged that some individuals “should not be celebrated.”
“The materials were not vetted appropriately,” the principal said in the letter obtained by the Herald, “and they should not have been displayed in the first place. I apologize for any offense it has caused. When this initially occurred, I apologized to the Perry staff.”
McGrath did not state when he apologized to the staff. His apology to the whole school community came a day after elected officials held a virtual meeting to discuss concerns muddying the start of the academic year.
Caught in Southie reported Friday that the display was “not an original creation of the school but a $5 prefab sold by an Algeria-based company, Little Star Learners.” The neighborhood news outlet wrote that state Sen. Nick Collins, Rep. David Biele and City Councilor Ed Flynn would be holding Thursday’s meeting regarding concerns at the school.
Courtney Kinney, a BPS operational leader who oversees the Perry, confirmed Thursday night that the posters had come down. She said Superintendent Mary Skipper and all officials were “in agreement that this was a huge mistake.”
Kinney did not anticipate speaking during the meeting, but she said she did so as a community member, rather than on behalf of the district, to help clear the air. She described communication at the Perry as “broken.”
“I assure you that your children are safe at the Perry,” Kinney said. “I cannot say it enough: Your children are safe. You have teachers who love them. … I am aware of the concerns, and we are addressing it.”
Collins, who represents Southie in the state Senate, called the removal of the display “welcome news,” while stating that he agreed with Skipper that the posters “never should have been put up.”
Collins and other electeds from the neighborhood are slated to meet with the superintendent to address concerns at the Perry this week.
“It shouldn’t take calls to elected officials and a community meeting to get basic communication and accountability from their Principal,” the senator told the Herald on Saturday. “We look forward to meeting with the Superintendent about the outstanding issues that have been unresolved.”
Flynn added in a statement: “Perry teachers and parents must be heard and respected by the school principal and BPS. We must work together to ensure the Perry School remains an excellent school in our neighborhood and has the necessary resources and support for our students, teachers and staff.”
The posters included Castro stating that a “revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past,” Che Guevara’s remark that the “true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love,” and Peron mentioning, “The day that poverty eradicated from the earth, there will be the greatest spiritual rebirth in the history of mankind.”
In an email obtained by the Herald, McGrath told a community member on Friday that his decision to hang the posters was “more of just an oversight on my part in paying more attention to the quote than the historical significance of the individual.”
Jeremiah Sparks’ son just entered the Perry earlier this month, leaving a situation the father described as “awful.” The transition has proven “smooth,” but Sparks, a Marine who has served three deployments, said the “communist rhetoric … was poor taste.”
“Especially in an elementary school, to start off on the right foot, we should be just careful,” Sparks said, “to teach our kids how lucky we are and how great freedom is, and not to go in a direction that leads against every principle that every person that has ever fought in war for America has fought for and died.”
Johnny Walsh, another father, said he found it “very unfortunate” that the Southie electeds were holding the meeting and that bringing the bulletin board into the public purview “harmed the reputation of the school.”
Walsh took a shot at Mass Daily News, an outlet critical of Mayor Michelle Wu, Gov. Maura Healey and other electeds, for further reporting on the issue.
“I doubt that many students saw it in the first place,” he said of the board. “It is very unfortunate that some of those images are immediately being disseminated to online right-wing tabloid blogs that are painting our school and our community in a terrible light and are frankly probably putting a dangerous target on our school community’s back.”
Another father, Mike Norman, said that he wasn’t “super happy” about the posters and that the meeting notice caught him off guard.
“My kid is not in danger from seeing Fidel Castro on a board,” he said. “Like, I was legitimately worried that there was a physical risk to our kids.”
In his letter to the community at large on Friday, McGrath said he has received safety concerns from parents. “I want to assure you that the Perry continues to be a very safe school and your child’s safety is always our best priority,” he said.
After some parents pressed the elected officials for examples of specific concerns, former Perry teacher Judith Nee alleged that “teachers are being spied on” and mentioned that schedule changes have been awry.
“Teachers are not feeling positive,” said Nee, who taught at the Perry for 20 years. “There is hostility. There is an ‘out-to-get-you’ mentality.”
A letter signed by an anonymous staffer at the Perry that surfaced prior to Thursday’s meeting stated that teachers were “dumbfounded” over the convening. It detailed how teachers view McGrath’s start positively.
But an emergency faculty senate meeting was reportedly held before school on Thursday, with 96% of faculty members in attendance voting to disavow the letter. The message from the anonymous staffer, they said, “does NOT represent their views.”
Erin Welch, a mom, said the Hispanic Heritage Month display board calls McGrath’s judgment into question, with the “three offensive posters.”
“They were very politically-charged,” she said. “That’s what incites the political conversation around it. I don’t want the kids to have to have that part of their day. … Are political things going to be entering the curriculum?”
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