Bonnie Verne isn’t teaching third-graders anymore. This Arizona woman used to work at Scottsdale’s Pardes Jewish Day School until she sent out several tweets with violent, anti-immigrant language.
@jewishphoenix 3rd grade teacher at @PJDSAZ is threatening undocumented. She just made tweets private but search for screenshots like this pic.twitter.com/cAi9WL2rsG
— Robin Jeffers (@OwliePye) February 19, 2017
“Ha ha ha you must want to be raped by a Muslim,” she allegedly told another person on Twitter.
These and other messages are now inaccessible—Verne made her account private—but people took screengrabs of her posts, and confronted her and the school on social media after learning she was a teacher.
Verne resigned. Head of School Jill Kessler sent out a statement last Monday. She said Verne regretted making the comments, and agreed to leave Pardes.
From the statement obtained by Law Newz:
The leadership at our school deeply respects the rights of all citizens including those associated with the school to express their views, regardless of their political perspectives. However, with that right comes individual responsibility not to make hateful comments, which have no place in our school. To the contrary, words that demean and diminish other human beings run counter to the values this school holds dear including kavod, the respectful communication and treatment of all people.
She says Verne’s political views never made it into the classroom.
Fiance Gerald Reyes argues the tweets have been taken out of context.
“She was making comments on articles she would read about children getting raped by immigrants,” he told ABC 15. “A 14-year-old and an 11-year-old were raped, and the guy had been deported four times, and she goes, ‘why deport them, they should be shot.'”
Updated – Feb. 27, 5:23 p.m.: Updated with information from the school’s statement.
[Screengrab via THX11]
