‘Mr. Julian needs new shoes’: Philly students’ teasing about their teacher’s footwear goes viral

Students in Julian Perrin’s ninth-grade history class at Tech Freire Charter High School in North Philadelphia love their teacher. They just have one issue with his classroom presentation:

His shoes — a well-worn pair of chukka boots that have become the butt of good-natured ribbing.

“They’re hideous,” one of his 14-year-old students, Christina, wrote, “and he is tired of being bullied.”

So, as the school day wound down Friday, she and her classmates decided to do something about it: They launched a “Mr. Julian Needs a New Pair of Shoes” campaign on GoFundMe.

But what started as a playful April Fools’ Day joke quickly caught fire on social media and within 24 hours their fund-raising effort went viral. It’s since raised more than $3,000.

“The kids are losing their minds,” said Bailey Fulton, one of Perrin’s coworkers and a science teacher at the high school.

Perrin, 28, who has taught at the school for four years, said he hasn’t actually worn the battered boots since earlier this year — and, for the record, he stands by them as a sartorial choice.

“The students would rag on them, and I would feed into it to build rapport with them,” he said. “It was a great connector for us.”

Perrin said it was another teacher who first alerted him to what his students were up to through a FaceTime call during his second-to-last class of the day Friday.

“All my students [were] shouting they were going to start a GoFundMe,” he said. “I found it hilarious and endearing, and shared the situation with my class.”

His assistant principal, Brian Galetto, said Perrin has taken the teasing from his students in good fun, though he’s been overwhelmed by its traction on social media.

“Julian is pretty mellow,” he said. “He’s got a phenomenal sense of humor. … The kids love Julian. They really care for him, and I think he felt that. But now, he’s, like, ‘What the hell!’ This is way bigger than he imagined.”

It all started Friday night when Maddie Leubbert, an English teacher at Kensington Health Sciences Academy, noticed the students’ fund-raiser and shared it on Twitter with the joking message: “Philly kids are savage.”

The tweet struck a chord with educators. It has since received more than 132,000 likes and 14,000 retweets.

“Quinta Brunson,” one responder tweeted at the creator of the ABC comedy Abbott Elementary, a humorous take on life at a fictional Philly school, “the children wrote you a new episode plot line.”

By Saturday, PA Youth Vote, a nonpartisan coalition of students and educators, had even latched on to the campaign to raise awareness for the city’s underfunded schools.

Originally, Perrin’s students set a goal of raising $100 to buy him a new pair of more stylish Nike Blazer ‘77s. But with the extra cash the students have raised, the money could go to funding more supplies or activities for the classroom.

Even some of Perrin’s colleagues at Tech Freire — which has roughly 450 students on a campus across from the Uptown Theater on North Broad Street — have pitched in.

If anything, Galetto said, the joke speaks to the strength of the relationship Perrin has built with his students.

“The students who put this together have all A’s in his class,” he said. “They’re eager and enjoy the relationship they have with him. You won’t see this often, where there’s this comfort level of banter between students and their teacher.”

Tech Freire, launched in 2016, has put that open dialogue between teachers and students at the forefront of its mission. The campus is named after Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator who developed the theory that active participation in the classroom produces better results than mere lectures from a teacher.

“In order to effectively learn there has to be active dialogue — participants speaking with respect and love but using their voice,” Galetto said. “We’re very proud of the community we’re trying to develop here.”

Perrin, meanwhile, said he’s still coming to terms with his footwear’s moment in internet infamy.

“Not really a fan of being in the spotlight, but there isn’t much to do about it at this point,” he said. “Also, some of those social media comments … bunch of wild people in this world.”

As for his students?

“I love the relationships I have with my kids, and I hope people see how important it is to foster those relationships and give students a voice,” he said. “I hope my kids see how strong their voices are and how great they are.”