Asst. Principal Solicited Donations from Teachers and Staff to Pay Off Coyote for Illegal Alien Student in Rhode Island High School

An assistant principal at Mount Pleasant High School in Providence, Rhode Island sent an email to teachers and staff this week soliciting donations to pay off the debt to a coyote owed by an illegal alien student at the school. The email by Dr. Stefani Harvey asked for $2000 by February 1st to help pay off the $5000 debt to the smuggler. On Friday school principal Tiffany Delaney shut down the fundraiser as “not appropriate” and said donations would be refunded.

Text of Assistant Principal Stefani Harvey’s email (Harvey’s Twitter bio reads: “Black educator, queer, activist, poetry, Roxbury bred, save our streets, dismantle school to prison pipeline, I hear you, speak your truth.”):

Hello Team:

Please see the message below regarding your consideration for an urgent matter to support one of our own students here at Mount.

We have a student who came to America with ‘Coyote,’ which is a group that helps people. This group gives you a time frame to make a payment of $5,000 to those, who bring them to the states. Our student needs our urgent support to raise another $2,000 to reach his goal of $5,000 by February 1, 2023.

Please consider helping if you can by donating on Friday. Melanea will be around to collect money.

Text of Principal Tiffany Delaney’s email:

I was informed there was an email seeking financial support for one of our students. I appreciate the faculty and staff contributing to a cause that supports a student, but the nature of the request is not appropriate. All funds contributed will be returned and we will seek more appropriate methods to support our students.

The email were posted online by a concerned parent school activist in Rhode Island, Nicole Solas. Authenticity of the email was confirmed by the president of the Providence Teachers Union Maribeth Calabro in a radio interview Friday morning with Matt Allen on WPRO-AM/FM. Calabro said some teachers thought the email was a hoax but that after discussions they realized it was serious and was told by school officials it was real.

A producer for Tucker Carlson contacted the school, “I called the school about the vice principal who was raising money for a human trafficker. I wanted to know if the police are involved and how common this is. The person who responded refused to give her name, said they are investigating themselves, and hung up the phone.”

“That is a fake email. We are on top of that. We are trying to figure out who generated that and why. We do not have a student that is being human trafficked,” the school official, who did not identify themselves, told the DCNF.”

Last October the school opened a food pantry on campus for students and their immediate family, reported WJAR-TV (excerpt):

A new school-based food pantry at Mt. Pleasant High School promises to ensure students to get the nutrition they need.

“I am so super excited over this food pantry. This is an opportunity for us to help the families here at Mt. Pleasant, something I’ve been deeply wanting to do,” said Tiffany Delaney, principal at Mt. Pleasant High School.

“80% of the students at Mt. Pleasant High School are identified as economically disadvantaged,” said Johanna Corcoran, executive director at We Share Hope, a nonprofit organization that retrieves surplus food for those in need. It is behind this initiative.

…”There are a lot of students that sometimes, honestly, this is their only meal, so they come here for breakfast and lunch, and this is just an extension of what we’ll be able to offer them,” said Delaney.

This food pantry will be open to all students at the high school and their immediate family during school hours two days a week.

Harvey joined Mount Pleasant about a year ago according to a school newsletter dated January 24, 2022 (excerpt):

In early December, we welcomed Assistant Principal Dr. Stefani Harvey to MPHS. Dr. Harvey was most recently the Redesign Fellow at Hope High School and previously worked in several building and central office administrative roles in the Boston Public School system. Dr. Harvey brings many years of experience with her to Mr. Pleasant. Dr. Harvey will work directly with 10th grade families and various departments at MPHS>