Piedmont High School held an all-student assembly Monday to address recent anti-Semitic and racist incidents there.
Piedmont High has seen Nazi salutes in the hallway, a gym class dance routine in the shape of a swastika and anti-Semitic statements made directly to students such as “you’ll burn like your ancestors.”
According to the East Bay Times, Rabbi Mark Bloom of Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland said that “his 17-year old son, a junior at Piedmont High, told his father about several incidents — students giving ‘Heil Hitler’ salutes; students forming a dance routine in the shape of a swastika in gym class; and other students targeted for their ethnicity with racial slurs.”
The incidents, which have been occurring for several months, were first brought to the administration’s attention last month, KTVU reported, citing a letter sent from school leaders to students’ homes on Monday.
At the assembly, Bloom’s son read “a letter from another student who was hurt by anti-Semitic remarks and actions,” according to the East Bay Times.
Chief Jeremy Bowers of the Piedmont Police Department told the East Bay Times that the “police were not called in for support and briefings until the past week.”
“Our focus is to ascertain the safety of the students and determine if there were any hate incidents,” Bowers said.
Officials from the Piedmont Unified School District are investigating the incidents with help from police, according to the report.
Students of color told KTVU that they have been complaining about racial incidents throughout the entire school year and that the issue was only addressed once Jewish students complained.
Piedmont Unified School District Superintendent Randall Booker was not immediately available for comment on details of assembly.
J. recently filed a records request with Piedmont High School in connection with these incidents.
JTA contributed to this report.
An assembly is not only not THE answer it is not AN answer. I suggest that Piedmont look at the programs Hayward Unified has had in place for years. I felt empowered as a teacher to stand up for myself, my coworkers, and my students because we had clear board policies backed up by substantial programming. The SPLC is also an excellent resource for ideas.
Are perpetrators identified? Are they held accountable? Are they suspended or punished in any way? Where is the ADL? Protecting anyone but Jews? Where is the JCRC? Endlessly talking? It is obvious that Bay Area Jewish Organizations have neither respect nor any power to protect Jewish students.
‘Rich white trash’ does not flow as easily as ‘poor’, but they are what they are.
Welcome to the totalitarian nanny state: whenever anyone anywhere hurts someone’s feelings (or is said to hurt someone’s feelings) it’s a crisis warranting calls to the police and drop-whatever-you-were-doing mass meetings.
Folks, these are kids. Kids do stupid things to provoke and draw attention. Just let it go. It’s not the second coming of the Third Reich.
How do you think the first coming of the Third Reich began?
Some fact checking would be great. There was no “dance routine.” The administration acted as soon as an incident was reported, and an assembly was only part of the response. It’s nobody’s business what punishment may have been meted out to the perpetrators — they are minors. The police chief has been kept in the loop from the start and is working to educate the community about the difference between a hate crime and a hate incident (these are hate incidents, to which the police response must be educational only). The majority of the students and community are appalled by these incidents and are actively working to mitigate in a variety of ways. Yes, these incidents are serious. Yes, racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, ableism, misogyny and all the awful things we are trying to move past as a society still exist, and are going to spout from the mouths of babes for the forseeable future. The administration acted appropriately; the reporting could use some work.