Updated May 19
The Tamalpais Union High School District failed to properly investigate allegations that a Spanish teacher made an antisemitic remark during class last fall, the California Department of Education has concluded.
Despite collecting substantial evidence about the alleged remark and its effect on students, the Marin County school district was vague about whether an offense occurred and did nothing to address the harm it caused, the CDE wrote in a May 8 report following an investigation.
The CDE’s report, seen by J., reverses the district’s response to a Uniform Complaint Procedures (UCP) complaint about the incident. The state began its investigation after the parent who filed the original complaint then appealed the district’s determination.
The incident revolves around a comment from a Spanish teacher during class at an unnamed high school on Oct. 11, 2024. The teacher asked her students whether it was “weird” that the school was closed on Rosh Hashanah but not on Indigenous Peoples Day, according to the UCP complaint. Answering her own question, the teacher said “because there are too many Jews,” the complaint stated.
The state’s report did not name the school or teacher. The district likewise did not disclose this information to J., citing privacy laws.
The CDE found that despite three student witnesses giving corroborating accounts in written statements under threat of perjury, as well as other evidence such as a weak denial of the incident from the teacher, the district determined that the allegations were “not sustained.”
“Given all information in the investigation file, coupled with factual findings in the [investigation report], the bulk of the evidence appears to confirm the Complaint’s allegation that a Spanish teacher, during class time instruction, questioned why school was out on a Jewish holiday and then answered that rhetorical question with the comment that it was because there were ‘too many’ Jews,” the CDE report states.
Tamalpais Superintendent Tara Taupier confirmed with J. this week in an email exchange that the district does observe one of the Jewish High Holidays and added that it “has nothing to do with the number of Jewish students in our district.”
The Tamalpais district, based in Larkspur, serves about 4,700 students in five high schools.
The teacher’s remark disturbed Jewish students in the class and led to feelings of “alienation and distress among several students,” according to a May 8 press release from ActNowK12, a collaboration between the Anti-Defamation League and local parent groups in California that helps families report incidents of antisemitic discrimination.
One student said they did “‘not feel comfortable going back to [the teacher’s] class’ after the incident,” the CDE’s report stated.
According to ActNowK12, the parent whose son witnessed the incident worked with local advocacy groups for Jewish parents in Marin County to file an appeal with the CDE in early March over the school district’s response.
That response, dated Nov. 12, 2024, concluded that the UCP complaint’s allegation was “not sustained” and “assigned no corrective actions.” In an email sent to the parent the following day, however, the district investigator who wrote the response seemed to contradict the findings of his own investigation.
“Although this did not change the outcome of the report, I do want to reiterate that the evidence shows [that your son’s] statement was truthful,” read the district investigator’s email, which was included in the CDE report. “Other students confirmed [your son’s] perspective that [the teacher] said something inappropriate… I remain very sorry for [your son’s] experience and will work to ensure that this does not happen again.”
District investigators also interviewed the teacher, who claimed she did not “precisely recall” saying “‘There are too many Jews’ at [the school] as a reason for why the district has days off for school for Jewish holidays and not for Indigenous Peoples Day,’” according to the CDE’s report, quoting from the district’s investigation.
“This inability to ‘precisely recall’ saying only a very specific quote for a specific ‘reason’ is a far cry from a denial from the teacher” and is outweighed by the students’ testimonies, one of which directly stated that some students in the class found the remark “antisemitic,” the CDE’s report stated.
The CDE report also noted that the district’s investigation deliberated the relevance of the teacher’s profile picture on one of her social media accounts, which included the phrase “Free Palestine.”
Ultimately, the district determined that the teacher’s online conduct was outside its jurisdiction, although the CDE noted that the district focused on the teacher’s personal account because it erroneously considered the case a complaint against a district employee rather than a formal UCP complaint with the district.
ActNowK12 said the district’s determination allowed it to evade “its obligation to follow the mandated Uniform Complaint Procedures,” effectively obscuring the “severity of the incident” and denying “the affected students a proper resolution.”
In a statement sent to J., the CDE stressed the importance of the UCP process but declined to comment on this case.
“The California Department of Education takes any complaint or appeal regarding discrimination with the utmost seriousness,” Elizabeth Sanders, director of communications at the CDE, said in a May 16 email. “We will allow this specific decision to speak for itself.”
Taupier acknowledged the CDE’s finding that the district should have followed the Uniform Complaint Procedure.
“We took the complaint seriously, conducted a thorough investigation of the teacher’s alleged remarks, and concluded –– under our policy for complaints concerning district employees –– that the available evidence did not support a finding of a policy violation,” Taupier said in an email to J. “We acknowledge and respect the CDE’s findings and will comply fully with the required corrective actions.”
In its reversal of the district’s determination, the CDE requires two corrective actions from the district: to protect the parent who filed the complaint and his son from any retaliation, and to provide training by Sept. 30 for all of its 300 high school teachers about the district’s policy against harassment and discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics, which include religion.
“We take all allegations of antisemitism –– and any form of discrimination –– very seriously,” Taupier said in the email. “As we move forward, we will be reviewing this matter closely and re-emphasizing to our staff the importance of upholding our district policies and core values of inclusion, dignity, and belonging.”