Censorship, Lies, and a Cover-Up: Mercer Island’s Political PTA Machine

Disclaimer: Everything here comes from public sources, social media, friendlies, or court records. Screenshots in link. Nothing private. All public info.

The Mercer Island PTA’s melting down with the November election coming and a second teacher predator, Curtis Johnston, exposed. It’s clear they knew for years and did nothing. Now they’re pulling the same national-style playbook: censor, lie, and kill comments anywhere people mention it. Receipts:

1. Fake Yelp account (Sept 2025) made by PTA members to smear Robert O’Callahan by liking and commenting on controversial businesses. One of them bragged about it, and Yelp confirmed it was an imposter. They’ve done this before, always blaming others.
2. An anonymous Facebook account tried to get MI Reporter journalist Linnea fired. Julian Bradley (ex-PTA president, now school board candidate) first said her reporting was fair. He then flipped when the PTA didn’t like it. Julian is known as the school district simp.
3. On Nextdoor, PTA-linked mods delete posts supporting O’Callahan but keep up ones pushing Stephanie Burnett.
4. After the Curtis Johnston story broke, PTA + school leadership went into spin mode. A former city councilmember even posted that Fred Rundle and others were already talking about Curtis in Jan 2025 while he was still teaching. They knew and did nothing.
5. PTA folks are now locking or wiping comments on posts about their candidates, like “AwkwardButterfly99,” a PTA mom and Bradley campaign worker, did on Reddit last night when people started blasting her for saying “she spit out her red wine with laughter” after reading a post on teacher child predator Curtis Johnston. Good look PTA.

This isn’t new; they’ve used fear tactics before, claiming if a bond didn’t pass, we’d have a Uvalde-style shooting or asbestos everywhere (half the buildings were rebuilt in 2014).

Superintendent Fred Rundle even said their goal was to “graduate PTA members into Board and City positions.” And that’s precisely what they’re doing: protecting each other, shutting down anyone who speaks up, and pretending everything’s fine while the community gets gaslit. All the while letting multiple child predators prey on Mercer Island children.

Have others seen this in their school districts? What have people done to stop it?