Members of the union representing Long Beach Unified teachers are seeking to oust one of their top leaders after an internal investigation concluded he sent a message that mocked disabled students and evoked racist stereotypes about Black children.
Calls for union secretary John Solomon to resign come at a tense moment for the Teachers Association of Long Beach, which has been trying for months to secure a new contract. Pressure for Solomon to step down further escalated this week when the mayor and a handful of other elected leaders said he should resign rather than “divert critical time and resources away from contract negotiations that directly impact teachers and students.”
Solomon, who teaches at MacArthur Elementary School, is accused of sending the message in May to a group chat for the union bargaining team.
The message in question depicted a Black child wearing an ankle monitor, accompanied by the message “We need this for our runners!” Teachers who spoke to the Long Beach Post said “runners” was a reference to special education students who may be prone to wandering off.
A screenshot of the message, shared with the Post, shows that one of the 11 team members in the group chat replied: “That image is troublesome on many levels.” Solomon’s number responded, “Yeah. I see that.”
Solomon has denied sending the message, according to internal communications reviewed by the Post, saying someone must have hacked his phone.
The Long Beach Post also obtained the conclusions prepared by a three-member investigative committee appointed by the union. They wrote that Solomon’s claim that “somebody else sent the text to the Bargaining Team is simply not credible.” They noted that multiple members of the group chat saved a record of the message, which came from Solomon’s number, and Solomon continued texting from the same number.
When contacted by the Long Beach Post, Solomon deferred to his attorney, who said the accusations are without merit and defamatory. He said Solomon will probably pursue legal action against the union and could sue others spreading information about the situation.
Solomon has since resigned as a member of the union bargaining committee, citing increasing responsibilities in the classroom. A new team is now working on contract proposals after an unusually lengthy process that included the unprecedented step of members voting down a tentative agreement. Solomon, however, has refused to step down as secretary of the union’s executive board, calling the investigation a “KANGAROO COURT,” according to communications reviewed by the Post.
The executive board has recommended closing the matter if Solomon resigns. Short of that, however, they have no mechanism to remove him, according to TALB President Gerry Morrison.
The impasse has sparked a recall campaign, which would require a quarter of TALB’s 3,700 members to sign a petition, which triggers a special election. A simple majority is necessary to unseat an executive board officer.
Manar Totonji, a science teacher at Poly High School, said he is the “chief architect of the recall.” When he learned about the text in July, he said he was in “complete disbelief that something so repugnant and racist” had been sent by “a person that we all elected, who is representing our collective interests to the district and who actually sits in a classroom himself.”
At union meetings of more than 100 people in August and September, Totonji urged members to sign the petition and share it at their school sites. “There’s collective disgrace and shame that we need to separate ourselves from,” Tononji said at Thursday’s meeting.
But the person Totonji sought to separate from was not present: Solomon did not attend the meeting, though he was on the agenda to issue an officer report.
“I wish Mr. Solomon was here, because I wanted to wait and look him in the eye and talk to him,” Bola Oduwole, a science teacher at Poly High said at Thursday’s meeting. In an interview, Oduwole added, “My question to him is: Every time you see an African American kid or an Asian kid or a brown kid is that all you see? I wonder what other stereotypes exist in your mind.”
On Monday, Mayor Rex Richardson’s office issued a statement saying he and a group of elected officials “are outraged that a member of the Teachers Association of Long Beach’s Executive Board, John Solomon, shared a racist and ableist message with TALB’s negotiations committee. Such behavior is unacceptable, harmful to Black students and students with disabilities, and unworthy of any leader in education.”
Also included as signatories were Councilmember Joni Ricks-Oddie, Councilmember Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, Long Beach City College Board President Uduak-Joe Ntuk, LBCC Vice President Ennette Morton, and LBUSD School Board member Erik Miller.
According to records reviewed by the Post, the school district declined to perform its own investigation into the accusations against Solomon, who has continued teaching at MacArthur Elementary School.
A TALB member filed a formal complaint to the district’s human resources department in August, but the records obtained by the Post show that the district replied a month later, saying that the complaint “falls outside the scope of the District’s authority to investigate. For this reason, the District will not pursue the matter.”
The district declined to comment, citing confidentiality and stating the district aligns with nondiscrimination board policies and remains committed to providing a safe, inclusive and nondiscriminatory learning and working environment for all students and staff.