A school board vice president in Gloucester County agreed to resign last week after a racially insensitive post he made on Facebook that one of his colleagues called “disgusting.”
Jeffrey Simpler agreed to submit a letter of resignation on Friday from his seat on the Monroe Township Board of Education after speaking to Board President Tony Ayres,
“He went on about what a mistake it was,” Ayres said, referring to their phone call last week. “After a few minutes of discussion, he agreed it would be in everybody’s best interest if he resigned immediately. He regretted very much what he did.”
Simpler’s post featured a link to a June 27 news story from ABC New York about 18 people shot in a 24-hour period.
“As much as I hate to say this. Stay out of the way, and let them kill each other sooner or later they will run out of Black people to kill,” Simpler’s post said according to images of the post reviewed by NJ Advance Media.
The school board voted unanimously during a meeting Wednesday to accept the resignation, but Ayres said it took effect last week.
A groundswell of social media protest against Simpler’s Facebook post had already ignited before his resignation. A Change.org petition calling for his resignation was also created last week.
“Based on his actions, Simpler is clearly unfit to remain in his current post on the Monroe Township Board of Education,” the petition said.
Attempts to reach Simpler were not successful. Ayres said he deactivated his social media and disconnected his phone.
Ayres said Simpler had been a school board member for about a decade.
Ayres, who has been a board member for two years, insisted Simpler’s comments do not represent the sentiments of the township.
“We have been made aware that a former Board member made very troubling public comments on social media,” a statement on the township school district website said. “It is important our community realize these comments do not reflect the Monroe Township Public Schools and the Board of Education.”
The K-12 district of about 6,000 students is about 70% white, nearly 16% Black, 11% Hispanic and 3% Asian, according to state school statistics. Ayres said the school board is all white and has no minority members.
The former board president, Fred Powell, resigned in March during a school board meeting in which the interim superintendent Richard Perry was given 30 days notice that he was being terminated. Powell said he was surprised by the move, which the majority of board members had apparently already agreed upon.
“It’s a mess,” Powell told NJ Advance Media last month. “In the time I was on the board, for two years, one thing I learned was no one ever told me the truth.”
Perry and three other former top school administrators are suing the board for terminations and other actions they claim were unwarranted.
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Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
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