A local teacher has resigned from his high-ranking position at the Teachers Association of Long Beach after mounting pressure from other educators who said he’d sent a racist and offensive message in a union group chat.
John Solomon is employed at MacArthur Elementary School and, until this week, was also the elected secretary of the teachers association’s executive board. He was facing an escalating recall campaign this month over a text message that showed a Black child wearing an ankle monitor with the comment, “We need this for our runners.” Other teachers said this was a reference to special education students whose disabilities may cause them to elope or run from campus.
Solomon denied sending the text, which was sent in a group chat for the union’s contract bargaining team. He said his phone was briefly hacked, but an investigative team appointed by the teachers union concluded that “there is no doubt that the text … was sent by John Solomon,” according to investigative findings reviewed by the Long Beach Post.
During a union executive board meeting on Tuesday afternoon, Solomon read a letter tendering his resignation, according to a member of the executive board who was present at the meeting.
Solomon reiterated his innocence, according to the executive board member, and said the school district had directed him not to publicly defend himself. Solomon said that the investigation conducted by the union was unfair and led to baseless conclusions, omissions and misperceptions, according to the board member.
Union president Gerry Morrison also confirmed Solomon’s resignation to the Post.
Hours after the meeting, Teachers Association of Long Beach members received an email newsletter announcing a vacancy in the position of secretary. TALB will hold a special election in December to choose a new secretary, who will finish the remainder of Solomon’s term, which runs through June 2026, according to the email.
Solomon’s resignation comes after a group of local officials, including the mayor, several City Council members and a school board member, called on him to resign from his position as secretary of the teachers union, saying he was diverting attention from unusually thorny contract negotiations.
Other elected leaders chimed in, including state Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach), who pressed Long Beach Unified to investigate the text message after the district initially declined to do so, saying the issue fell “outside the scope of the District’s authority to investigate,” according to records reviewed by the Post.
Days after the Post first reported all this, LBUSD reversed course and announced it was “actively investigating” the incident and that Solomon had been placed on administrative leave pending the investigation’s outcome. The district “stands firmly against racism, anti-Blackness, and all forms of discrimination” it said in a statement shared with the LBUSD community.
Solomon did not immediately respond to a request for comment by phone and email.