A\u00a0Northwood school board member who posted racist and vulgar messages on social media resigned Tuesday, a day before the school board was set to discuss his conduct.<\/p>\n
Gary Caron\u2019s social media activity, which included racist and sexually explicit posts targeted toward conservatives, particularly supporters of Donald Trump,\u00a0had become the focal point of public outrage.<\/p>\n
Brian Winslow, the school board chair, said Caron\u2019s social media comments\u00a0were\u00a0\u201cobscene and objectionable and have caused significant concern\u201d within the community.\u00a0Winslow asked Caron to step down from his position and\u00a0Caron resigned Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese actions have also created a distraction from the important work of the school board, which is focused on the education and well-being of the Northwood student,\u201d wrote Winslow.<\/p>\n
Prior to his resignation, residents were gearing up to voice their concerns and demand Caron\u2019s resignation at Wednesday\u2019s school board meeting. Expecting a large turnout, the meeting was also moved from the town library to the\u00a0 Northwood School gymnasium.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With Caron\u2019s departure, the five-member school board finds itself with a vacancy, although still able to function.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot having one member puts us at even numbers which in a democratic situation, you sometimes want an odd number, so there aren\u2019t ties. We can operate without one if needed,\u201d said Nate Byrne, the superintendent of the district.<\/p>\n
The school board might appoint an interim member until the next election cycle, he said.<\/p>\n
Caron primarily used the platform X, formerly known as Twitter to\u00a0target and reply\u00a0to conservatives with racist slurs, explicit sexual language and violent threats. His posts grew more vulgar in 2022.\u00a0By 2023, his responses to political opponents began to heavily include racial slurs, sexual language and violent threats. This was the same year he was elected as a school board member.<\/p>\n
\u00a0In a letter to Winslow posted\u00a0on Facebook, Caron said his posts were taken out of context, which in turn increased his social media footprint.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hysterical follow up by the MAGA sympathizers and others on Twitter did more for accumulating followers than any comment I could or did make since Elon Musk removed restrictions to free speech,\u201d Caron wrote. \u201cIn one day my following tripled with supporters and like-minded individuals. I could not stand by and not comment on these MAGA Republican deplorable key board basement dwelling investigators.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A\u00a0Northwood school board member who posted racist and vulgar messages on social media resigned Tuesday, a day before the school board was set to discuss his conduct.Gary Caron\u2019s social media activity, which included racist and sexually explicit posts…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":553,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=553]Sruthi Gopalakrishnan[\/Author] Monitor staff","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[508,12],"tags":[24,259,505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[506],"class_list":["post-11487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-headlines-cm","category-town-city-government","tag-facebook","tag-northwood-nh","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/553"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11487"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=11487"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=11487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}