Fall River Teacher Accused of Posting Racist Comments to Facebook

A teacher from Matthew J. Kuss Middle School has been placed on paid administrative leave after allegedly posting "disgusting, racist, and bigoted comments" to Facebook.

The teacher was not named in a joint statement sent today from the Fall River School Committee and Fall River Public Schools Superintendent Matthew Malone.

No details were provided about the content of the offending social media posts. According to the joint statement, the matter came to the attention of authorities on June 5.

"At that time, we were able to piece together several screenshots of the posted commentary that were shared with us. We immediately began a further investigation on Facebook, but by this time the posts had been removed and deleted," the media release stated. "Using the evidence that we did have, we immediately placed the employee on paid administrative leave per our Standard Operating Procedures involving personnel investigations into potential wrongdoing."

The employee was informed of the allegations, and his or her access to the school department's information and email system was terminated. Additionally, the leadership of the Fall River Educators’ Association was informed of the action.

"As this is an ongoing active investigation to determine fact, we cannot comment any further on the specifics of the case," the statement read. "However, we can tell you that we are outraged by what we read from the Facebook screenshots, and we can confirm with conviction that the Fall River Public Schools do not tolerate any form of racist, bigoted, and/or hateful speech from any member of our professional community."

The school is located at 52 Globe Mills Avenue.