The El Rancho Unified school board voted Tuesday to fire a teacher who was heard in videos trashing military members as “dumbsh*ts” and the “lowest of the low.”
Gregory Salcido made the comments to a 17-year-old wearing a Marine T-shirt. The cell phone video of the incident went viral and even Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly said Salcido “ought to go to hell.”
Locals were outraged and were frustrated with the length of time it took the board to make their decision to fire Salcido.
The board voted in closed session after two people, local resident John Albitre and Pico Rivera City Councilman Bob Archuleta, spoke about Salcido during public comment on the closed session item.
Both said they hoped the board would fire him.
Albitre went a step further, saying he would try to figure out how to get Salcido stripped of his teaching credentials.
“A man like this — we just don’t need him,” Albitre said. “But I’d hate to see him keep his credentials and go somewhere else, and bully other kids and preach his way of life.”
I’m sure Salcido had his supporters — free speech advocates among them. But no one apparently thought enough of the jerk to defend him in public.
The Pico Rivera community has lamented what it views as a slow response by the district to fire him. Veterans protested outside the school the following week, and the district moved its next school board meeting to the gym to accommodate the huge crowds that turned out to speak about the issue.
Many people noted this wasn’t Salcido’s first controversy. He’s been placed on administrative leave at least twice before, once in 2012 for hitting a student and once in 2010 for allegedly threatening a student.
A real prince of a guy.
During the Feb. 13 City Council meeting in which he said he wouldn’t resign, Salcido also said his comments were taken out of context and that they were a way of trying to reach an “apathetic” student.
He apologized if anyone was hurt, but he did not apologize for the comments themselves.
“If anything I have said has hurt somebody, it was unintentional, and I hope that apology can be taken sincerely,” he said.
How can you unintentionally say something like that? A liar and a jerk, that one.
Salcido also sits on the city council and was asked to resign. When he refused, a recall petition was circulated to strip him of his seat.
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