Rockville Teacher Finds Swastikas On Desks After Diversity Lesson: Report

ROCKVILLE, MD — A teacher at a Rockville middle school was shocked when they found Swastikas drawn on desks in their classroom, right after giving students a lesson on diversity and hate speech on March 3, WTOP reports.

A Julius West Middle School class learned how diversity and hate speech intersect with society and after the lesson, the Swastikas were discovered on two desks.

“I want to assure the community that we at Julius West Middle School take matters of intolerance to others very seriously,” Principal Craig Staton said in a letter sent to parents.

Staton said the desks were immediately cleaned, and the teachers spoke to the students about the importance of being respectful and accepting.

“At the school level, I made an announcement to the entire student body stating that under no circumstances is it acceptable to communicate, whether in writing or speech, in a way that offends a person or group of people. I continually remind all of our students how fortunate we are to be in a school that is rich in diversity and how necessary it is for us to embrace and appreciate cultural differences,” Staton said.

A student in a class studying the Holocaust at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac received an anti-Semitic text message from an anonymous sender a day earlier on March 2.

Read the complete WTOP story here.

That same day as the incident at Julius West Middle School on March 3, Maryland Federal and State Officials and Montgomery County officials held a press conference in Rockville to reaffirm the County's solidarity with the Jewish community in response to recent acts of hate and violence toward Jewish communities across the nation.

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington was joined by U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen; Representatives John Sarbanes, John Delaney, and Jamie Raskin; and various other State and Montgomery County Government officials attended the press conference.

Leggett told meeting attendees that all Montgomery County residents need to stick up for their Jewish neighbors and Jewish residents should not have to "fight this fight alone."

More than a dozen Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) and several Jewish day schools across the country were targeted by threats in late February.

The threats were reported to 13 JCCs and eight Jewish day schools in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Virginia, according to the JCC of Northern America.

Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville was one of the institutions that received a bomb threat Monday.

Photo: Montgomery County Public Schools