Menlo Park school official resigns following wife’s vulgar tweet about Kamala Harris - San Francisco Chronicle

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The school board president of the Las Lomitas Elementary School District in Menlo Park resigned Sunday after an uproar caused by vulgar comments his wife made on social media about Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

Jon Venverloh, a former Google executive who was elected to the school board in November 2018, announced his immediate resignation in a statement to the Las Lomitas school community, in which he said that he needed to focus on and support his family during this time.

“I stood for election to be a trustee because I care about doing the right thing for ALL of our kids in our District,” Jon Venverloh said in the statement. “However, given my wife’s social media posts, which expressed reprehensible views that I do not agree with, I know that my continued service would be a distraction from the work that needs to be done in the District over the two years remaining in my term.”

In a Twitter post responding to a conversation about Harris’ qualifications, Mehridith Philips Venverloh used a profane sexual term, suggesting that all Harris needed “to be qualified” was to be Black. "No brain needed!!!” the message said. The post and the account connected to it has since been deleted.

Screenshots of the aforementioned Twitter post and other equally vulgar posts written by Mehridith Philips Venverloh about Harris were shared on social media with community members calling for Jon Venverloh’s resignation as school board president.

The Las Lomitas Elementary School District said in a statement Monday that district staff condemns “any and all racist statements made by anybody.”

The statement continued: “Every member of our community, regardless of who they are, is responsible to craft a culture of love and acceptance at Las Lomitas. Bigoted statements that question the integrity, accomplishment and character of people of color, of women, of LGBTQ+ people and of people who live at the intersections of these communities are intolerable and have no place in our Las Lomitas family or on either of our campuses.”

Las Lomitas Elementary School District Superintendent Beth Polito said the Board of Trustees will need to either hold a special election to replace Jon Venverloh or select an appointment process to fill his vacancy.

In a statement from the district’s school board, the trustees collectively denounced the comments made by Jon Venverloh’s wife, calling them “abhorrent and … racially-based and gender-based hatred.”

The Board acknowledged that Jon Venverloh did not make the offensive statements and that he publicly condemned them, but the governing body decided that the “egregiousness” of his wife’s social media posts undermined his ability to effectively serve as a governing trustee.

Mehridith Philips Venverloh could not be reached for comment.