BETHESDA, Md. — School leaders in Montgomery County, which prides itself on its diversity, are struggling to stop a wave of antisemitic incidents.
Since Friday, Schools Superintendent Monifa McKnight said the system has been hit by nine incidents at elementary, middle and high schools. She announced hate incidents will now be documented in a student's permanent record and parents will be called in to work on solutions.
McKnight said students have scrawled swastikas and engaged in hate speech. The attacks have often targeted specific fellow students.
"It's constantly coming back to retaliation, you know, in a bad situation happening between students," McKnight said when asked why students were taking these actions "What am I going to do to harm to get a reaction?"
In early February, at Walt Whitman High, students threatened to lure Jewish teens to a remote island and burn them at the stake.
"I am terrified of these students," said Rachel Barold, one of the targeted students. "I don't feel safe in school with them."
But Whitman is far from alone.
Dr. McKnight talked about "restorative justice" as a way of handling students who engage in antisemitic acts. But restorative justice sometimes pushes victims to interact with their attackers.
"They retraumatized me and other students," Barold said after administrators tried to use the principals of restorative justice at Whitman.
"I think for the person who is harmed in every situation, we must first figure out what do we need to do to make that person feel safe," McKnight said. "We always offer the opportunity to engage in that restorative justice conversation because we want to bring restoration to that environment."
Montgomery County schools also plans to boost lessons in Jewish history, starting next year as early as fourth grade.
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