This petition is being made so that the Winters Joint Unified School District investigates Tecera Philbrook, an educator who is unfit to be a teacher. To begin, I, as well as many students/alumni from Winters, CA are no strangers to Mrs. Philbrook. Some of us had her as a science teacher, others as a principal, and some even as their grade school teacher. If you were to ask her former alumni/students about their experiences with her, you would see that there are inconsistencies with how certain students were treated. I can personally vouch that Mrs. Philbrook treated me, as well as my class, unjustly. She would shout and scream at us, even when we weren't talking or being disrespectful to her. In fact, I, as well as other students, never talked in her or in any other classes we had, and received the same attitude towards us. What was special about my class? I was in a dual immersion class, where 90% of us came from a Latinx immigrant background, unjustly. In fact, 48% of the residents in Winters are of Latinx/Hispanic background. The reason she treated us unjustly wasn't because we were bad/unruly students; it was (and is) because she is intolerant of and prejudiced towards immigrants, as can be seen from her Facebook account. I, as well as my former classmates, are not alone in our experiences with her. There are other students who can say the same about their experiences with Mrs. Philbrook, even if they didn't happen in a classroom setting. 

On June 19th, 2020 Winters had a small peaceful protest in support of BLM. In a video shared on Twitter, a Latino man is heard yelling, “I’m going to target you!” at protestors. The video ends there but immediately restarts, and a protester is heard telling the man “I’m gunna sue you.” (What they meant to say was “I’m going to press charges”, however, given the threat, the protestor confused the terms.) The man continues to harass protesters, and while they argue, Tecera Philbrook, the educator in question, intervenes, DEFENDING the man. She claims that protestors were threatening the people there, when in fact, that is not true. (And, to set the record straight, someone only gets insulted by “Black Lives Matter” if they’re against it. If this doesn’t bother you, you wouldn’t shout back anything or harass protestors. You only do this if you are racist.) Obviously, this behavior violates a policy written by the Winters Unified School District. If these were two kids fighting, she would be defending the bully, NOT the victim.

I emailed the Board of Trustees a month ago (June 20th, 2020), asking the Winters Joint Unified School District to investigate Mrs. Philbrook. To this day, I have not received a response. This is an extremely serious matter that should not be overlooked. Tecera Philbrook is unable to do her job. People have spoken out about their experiences with her, proving that she is biased towards people of color, especially against Latinxs. This is someone who should have never been able to work with kids. Other students, including myself, can tell you our experiences with her. We went through enough with her; Don’t make other kids have to go through the same experiences we did. It doesn’t matter how long she’s been an educator; Hold her accountable for her actions. Overlooking her behavior and prejudices creates a precedent that allows biased teachers to continue to teach, just because they've established themselves as educators, which results in educational obstacles for students those teachers are prejudiced towards. Winters JUSD, investigate Tecera Philbrook, and hold her accountable for her actions.