School worker put on leave over anti-Asian comments to parents, California district says

An employee at a California elementary school was placed on leave after being accused of making anti-Asian comments to parents, local media and the district reports.

The employee, who works at Baldy View Elementary School in Upland, is accused of sending messages to parents saying they refused to participate in Lunar New Year events, KTLA reported.

On Jan. 31, the school shared a picture on Instagram of a cartoon tiger wearing a red outfit for Lunar New Year and said in the caption that its staff would be wearing red the next day to celebrate the holiday.

In several Asian cultures, including Chinese culture, the color red is associated with good luck and worn for special occasions. Lunar New Year is celebrated by numerous Asian countries, as well as hundreds of thousands of people in the Asian diaspora, NPR reported.

But in the messages, the employee said that they refused to wear red to school and that they “do not support the CCP,” the employee wrote, referring to the Chinese Communist Party, according to KTLA.

The employee also said “China gave us this COVID” and that parents needed to “wake up,” the outlet reported.

The Upland Unified School District addressed the matter in a Feb. 8 letter from Superintendent Lynn J. Carmen Day, confirming that a member of its staff had “shared hurtful and offensive messages about China and COVID-19” while using a school messaging app.

Day said that, upon discovering the employee’s behavior, officials “informed our entire district about the incident in order to send a clear message that any disparaging statements about race, nationality, ethnicity, or any dimension of diversity will not be tolerated.”

The district also immediately put the employee on leave, the letter said.

Day said officials learned about the messages on Feb. 1.

KTLA reported that the employee also denied a student the “little daily rewards” that all students are supposed to receive because she was wearing a Lunar New Year T-shirt, according to Dianna Ho-Merlino, the president of a parent-teacher association at a different school within the district.

“This incident is an ongoing personnel matter and, due to confidentiality requirements, we are unable to comment further regarding the investigation at this time,” Day said in the letter.

Upland Unified School District is in San Bernardino County, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles.

This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 6:31 PM with the headline "School worker put on leave over anti-Asian comments to parents, California district says."