BOSTON — Forget long division — at Perry School, five-year-olds were walking to class under Fidel Castro’s gospel: “A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.”

The South Boston elementary has become ground zero for a scandal that started with a “Hispanic Heritage Month” bulletin board and has now spiraled into allegations of spying, retaliation, and a principal parents say runs the place like a dictator, according to Caught in Southie, who first broke the controversy.

The $5 prefab display, ordered from a foreign company, plastered Castro’s face on the wall with his chilling quote. Next to him, Che Guevara smirked under his red-star beret with: “The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.” Juan Perón promised a “spiritual rebirth” once poverty was erased, while Eva Perón struck a softer note about leaving behind a legacy of helping others.

Superintendent Mary Skipper admitted the display was a “huge mistake” and had it ripped down before families arrived for a fiery community meeting. But parents didn’t show up just to complain about cardboard cutouts. They came with far bigger grievances.

Retired teacher Judith Nee said teachers were being “spied on,” veterans sidelined as “threats,” and morale gutted. Sen. Nick Collins said he’d heard similar reports from anonymous staff, some of whom described Principal Brendan McGrath’s management as “dictator-like.”

Parents made clear they were uneasy — not only about the posters, but about the climate around the school. One parent told the meeting: “I’m not super happy about [the posters], but my kid’s not in danger from seeing Fidel Castro on the board. I was legitimately worried that there was physical risk to our kids.”

Another added: “This Hispanic heritage month display was an unfortunate mistake. It’s very unfortunate that some of those images are now being disseminated to online right-wing tabloid blogs that are painting our school and our community in a terrible light and, frankly, probably putting a dangerous target on our school community’s back.”

McGrath stayed silent while Collins, Rep. David Biele, and Councilor Ed Flynn took the heat and promised a walk-through of Perry with Skipper next week.

Some parents even pointed fingers at Mass Daily News for spreading the story, but the reality is simple: without parents speaking up as well as media exposure, Castro and Che would still be decorating a taxpayer-funded hallway.

Now Perry has become the poster child for a bigger fight: whether taxpayer-funded schools are turning into political battlegrounds while reading and math are left behind. The dictators may be off the wall — but their shadow still hangs over Perry.