Burlington Principal, Asst Superintendent Call Parents Racist And Doxxes Them For Criticizing Her Racist Email, Says She’s Bringing Her “Blackness” To Cambridge

 

This is Tara Harris, the outgoing principal at Memorial Elementary School in Burlington.

She was only given the job as an interim position last year after spending most of her career in “education,” which meant being as far away from actual classrooms as possible.

Harris has spent 21 years working for schools in New York City in various capacities. She has spent seven years in child welfare/child protection and 14 years with the Department of Education serving as a Special Education teacher, PBIS Coordinator, a Special Education Administrator/Borough Manager for ASD Programs, Assistant Principal, and Director of Special Education.

Charlie Baker appointed her to a task force in November of 2021 that was supposed to increase diversity amongst school administrators, because kids will never be able to get a good education without a higher percentage of black superintendents.

Specific goals of the initiative include:

  • In the next 10 years:
    • The percentage of superintendents of color in Massachusetts will increase significantly from 4 percent in 2019 to 14 percent by 2029.
    • 100 districts across the state will participate in Influence 100, will become more culturally responsive and will have a strategy to diversify their educator workforce to better serve all students.

“All students should have the chance to see themselves reflected in the educators and leaders in their schools,” Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Jeffrey C. Riley said.

If you believe that the only way children can “see themselves” in a teacher or principal is if they share identical skin pigmentation, then it might be you who is the racist.

But the job was only an interim position, and ironically the black principal who was appointed to a task force to bring in more black principals wasn’t offered a new contract. This was largely due to parent complaints regarding treatment of special education students, and a lack of communication with parents. Luckily for her in the bloated bureaucracy of public education folks like Tara Harris will always be able to land another cushy six figure administrative job in another school district, especially if they’re a member of a “marginalized” group.

The irony of “marginalized” people getting advantages due to their status as marginalized is completely lost on Tara Harris though. This week she sent out an email to the entire district, including parents, basically saying what a great person she is and what a huge loss for the district it will be now that her “blackness” has moved to a cushy administrative job in Cambridge.

 

The grammar and spelling in this email alone should permanently disqualify her as an educator moving forward, never mind the unprofessionalism. Who would ever hire someone like this knowing that that this is what she’ll do on the way out?

“I was called to Burlington for the little girl who said on the 1st day of school – look she has skin like me.”

That never happened. But her obsession with both her race and herself is duly noted.

“Children asked, can we go with you to your new job?

That never happened. You’re an interim principal at an elementary school. Not a single child has ever wanted to leave their friends behind to follow around the principal to a place they’ve never been.

“Countless parents approached me with tears in their eyes.”

That never happened.

“I was called to Burlington for all of the children who don’t fit into that neat little box called compliant.”

Translation – I don’t believe in disciplining students when they break rules because being “compliant” is a structure of white supremacy.

“I was called to Burlington for the kindergarten students who crawl into my lap and cry when they need cuddles”

Not only did that never happen, it’s incredibly creepy that this is a lie she would make up.

“I was called to Burlington to be authentically and unapologetically ME.”

Be a bigger narcissist. You can’t. You were temporarily called to Burlington to SERVE THE CHILDREN OF BURLINGTON, not be “authentically ME.” This was never about you, and the fact that you think it was tells me everything I need to know about why you weren’t rehired.

“I am leaving Burlington to be the Executive Director of Special Education with my blackness leading the way.”

No, you’re leaving with you arrogance, unprofessionalism, and entitlement leading the way.

Roughly 4% of the population in Burlington is black. Tara Harris knew damn well that if she mentioned her “blackness” at the end it would make it harder for parents to criticize her unprofessional email. The Panera Bread Mafia Moms have learned the correct response to an email like this – “well, if you’re not black then you don’t know where she’s coming from, so we should just shut up and listen.” This is what they were taught in June of 2020 when street communists were burning American cities and telling white people it was their fault.

Two mothers named Victoria Kirchner and Christine Steiner were brave enough to respond. One of them simply pointed out how unprofessional the email was, while the other gave a more detailed response about why Tara Harris wasn’t invited back as principal.

Turns out the career climber who’s spent most of her career in New York and has no connection to Burlington wasn’t as well liked by the faculty as she claimed to be in her email.

At the 3:00 mark of this video Tara Harris said that parents should feel free to reach out to her at any time.

“I am absolutely always available by email. If you have any concerns please feel free to reach out to me.”

So you would think that parents wouldn’t have their privacy violated if they responded to her email and asked her not to be so racist. Instead in a reply all email Harris doxxed the two parents and violated confidentiality laws. A records request for these parent emails would’ve redacted their names, but rules and laws don’t apply to Tara Harris. If you thought the first email was unprofessional, narcissistic, and racist, wait until you see the followup:

Again, this is exactly the kind of email you write when you know you have unlimited job security in Cambridge due to your status as a “marginalized” woman.

“I have NEVER in my career received a negative email from any parent prior to this year.”

Oh OK, so you’ve never worked in an actual school before. Because there isn’t a principal on the planet who hasn’t received a negative email from a parent. Not one.

Of course she had to mix in the “NUMEROUS emails from supportive parents,” to make it seem like their opinions were the only valid ones. I have no doubt she did get supportive emails from white guilt laden parents who thought that they had to write that because as white people they are not allowed to criticize a person of color. But she uses their emails to delegitimize the perfectly valid criticisms from other parents.

“I have always put the needs of the children first even if it made the adults uncomfortable”

Translation – if your 2nd grade son tells me that he’s a girl, I will refer to him as she/her regardless of whether or not you approve of this.

“A Black woman acknowledging that I am Black shouldn’t warrant such an aggressive response”

Everyone knew you were black. Calling the emails an “aggressive response” is you tone policing concerned parents.

“My Blackness is a problem for MANY in this community and that is why it was highlighted.”

Translation – Burlington is a racist town, and any parent who criticizes my unprofessional email is proof of this.

“It causes me to be concerned about the children and families of color that live in this community.”

Translation – black children in Burlington are in grave danger because of racist white parents like the ones I named.

“I welcome feedback/criticism from anyone that feels so inclined to provide it.”

She welcomes criticism, but if you do respond then she will blast your name out in a district wide email.

“I don’t claim perfection”

You just said that you never received a negative email in two decades of work as an “educator.”

Victoria Kirchner then responded to Harris’ email and alleged that Harris did nothing about her 7 year old son being sexually harassed in class by female classmate who happened to be black.

First of all, great email. Secondly, these two statements suddenly make a lot more sense:

“I was called to Burlington for the little girl who said on the 1st day of school – look she has skin like me.”

“I was called to Burlington for all of the children who don’t fit into that neat little box called compliant.”

The girl in class wasn’t compliant by announcing that she wanted to have sex with a boy in front of the class. But forcing “compliance” for students of color is systemic racism, so the girl with the “skin like me” wasn’t reprimanded and now believes that this sort of behavior is appropriate. Harris couldn’t be bothered to respond to the “negative email” about sexual harassment in a first grade classroom (even though she said she always responds to emails) because no one has ever sent her a negative email before.

You’ll notice that Tara Harris CC’d Superintendent Eric Conti, Assistant Superintendent Patrick Larkin, and diversity, equity and inclusion director Ray Porch. They all saw the email and she was challenging them to object to it. Instead they did the opposite. Porch congratulated her.

Keep in mind, his position was created out of thin air last year and only exists because of the George Floyd riots. When you have six figure positions that are literally created just for you based on the color of your skin, you are incredibly privileged.

This is Asst. Superintendent Patrick Larkin.

He’s a he/him who virtues signals to his 46K Twitter followers about BLM and uses buzzwords like “equitable” in an attempt to prove that he’s one of the “good white people,” dismantling white supremacy one tweet at a time.

Don’t mess with Patrick Larkin – he’s an ally.

After George Floyd was killed 1,500 miles from Burlington he suddenly realized that his town was also racist and needed to hire a diversity czar.

“We like to pretend that [racism] can’t happen in Burlington, but it does,” he said. “We don’t live in a romantic little community, we have racism like everybody else.” Larkin, along with students and staff, is part of the equity committee which covers all kinds of discrimination within the school district, whether based on racial, LGBTQ, or disability issues.

So as you can imagine, he would never in a million years even dream about standing up to Tara Harris, even though his administration chose not to hire her full time.

After parents started chirping about the emails Harris (who is so full of herself that her Facebook name is Greatness Abound) posted how these parents were “undercover racists,” which Assistant Superintendent Larkin agreed was “predictable” from the racist parents he is paid to serve.

“I’m telling u now I’m putting their asses on blast for the whole community to see and I’m adding teachers.”

Imagine having the arrogance and the confidence to be this unprofessional on social media in front of your boss and know that you will get nothing but praise from him for it. Luckily most parents who saw this were outraged. If the parents in Burlington have any self respect they will demand that Larkin apologize or resign for his disparaging comments about parents, and that the superintendent issue a statement condemning Tara Harris’ emails. Seriously, find out when your next School Committee meeting is, sign up to speak, put an item on the agenda, and demand that the SC hold this administration accountable.

 

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