According to the CST's report:
There were 1,006 incidents of abusive behaviour, including verbal abuse, hate mail and anti-Semitic graffiti
Damage and desecration to Jewish property increased by a quarter - to 81 recorded incidents
There were 107 violent anti-Semitic assaults reported - the highest number since 2010
287 anti-Semitic incidents involved social media
Mark Gardner, from the CST, said the increase could be partly explained by a greater willingness to report incidents to the police.
In 2014 Anti-Semitic Incidents Rose 21 Percent Across The U.S. In A “Particularly Violent Year for Jews”The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, issued today, counted a total of 912 anti-Semitic incidents across the U.S. during the 2014 calendar year. This represents a 21 percent increase from the 751 incidents reported during the same period in 2013, and is the first time in nearly a decade of declines where the overall number of incidents has substantially risen.
Despite the increase in incidents, the total number of anti-Semitic acts still represents one of the lowest totals of anti-Semitic acts reported by ADL since it started keeping records in 1979.
So, back to the article with the caveat that I'm not sure Donald Trump's face really belongs on it.
Three teachers, frustrated by a lack of clear guidelines for dealing with such a sensitive issue, responded in sharply different ways. One talked about the swastika in class. Another spoke to a student about it. And a third withdrew a college recommendation for the student who created the swastika.
In Stoughton, several high school teachers urged administrators to speak out after the swastika incident in late November, according to the Stoughton Teachers Association. A girl, who is Jewish and who witnessed the incident, had asked the boy to remove the swastika. He did, but made an offensive remark.
The teachers asked administrators to send a letter home to parents explaining what happened, similar to the action taken in nearby Milton after several swastikas were discovered in the bathrooms of a middle school in December.
“By not discussing this with the entire community, parents were denied an opportunity to discuss this at the dinner table with their kids,” said John Gunning, Stoughton Teachers Association president.
Frustrated by the inaction, the teachers took matters into their own hands.
The two teachers who spoke about the incident with students received letters of reprimand in their files, and the teacher who rescinded her letter of recommendation for the student who had made the swastika was suspended for 20 days without pay. She began serving that suspension Thursday, according to the union.
On Friday, Stoughton’s superintendent, Marguerite Rizzi, who told the school committee Tuesday that she was unaware of more than one incident involving a swastika in her school, sent a two-page e-mail to parents describing two incidents.
In the second instance, which also occurred in late November, an image of a swastika was prominently displayed in a group chat involving several students on their phones.
The statement said that students involved in both incidents were disciplined but makes no mention of actions taken against teachers.
Rizzi chastised, but did not name, people whom she said were inaccurately portraying the incidents, and said that created a lost opportunity “to teach our children . . . the importance of forgiveness.”
Kveller:
The Stoughton High School teacher, who is also an Army veteran, is one of three teachers at the eastern Massachusetts school disciplined for discussing the swastika a student made from tape put on display in a hallway. Two of the teachers received disciplinary letters, while the third was suspended for 20 days. The Superintendent Marguerite Rizzi wrote in a letter to staff that was later obtained by The Enterprise newspaper in Brockton:
The student believed that he was being targeted, creating a hostile environment for him by members of the faculty because of his actions, despite having already been disciplined by the administration.
The student caught making the swastika out of tape was found by another student as they decorated the halls. Even more chilling, the student responded by making a comment about Adolf Hitler.
Somehow, the police said swastikas didn’t constitute hate crimes, so it was up to the school to find an appropriate punishment for the student. As a result, the teachers asked administrators to send a letter home to parents explaining the situation, but sadly, that didn’t happen. When two teachers brought up the incident in class to explain anti-Semitism, they were sanctioned with disciplinary letters.
There's a glaring hole in the reports: if he'd "already been disciplined by the administration," what did the administration do? Is that covered by some confidentiality clause? Does "the administration" get to talk to the Hitler Youth kid behind closed doors, then tell the world that the matter's been dealt with and they're not allowed to even discuss it any more? That seems ... fucked up, really.
So let's check with the school, eh?
Principal News
SEPAC Meeting Notice »
School Safety Presentation »
Title: Bullying and School Safety WorkshopAudience: Parents and Community Members Presented By: David Guglia and ...
Did they put that up in a hurry and forget the formatting?
School Safety PresentationPosted on: March 31, 2016 - 10:46am
Title: Bullying and School Safety Workshop
Audience: Parents and Community Members
Presented By: David Guglia and Sheanna Isabel (Stoughton Police Dept)
Date: April 27, 2015
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: O'Donnell Middle School
Description: This workshop will review bullying and cyber-bullying. It will highlight who is at risk, prevention, the response to bullying, and how to get help. School safety measures specific to the Stoughton Public Schools will also be discussed.
No. No, they didn't. That was posted almost a year ago. Unless they hacked their own webpage to make it
look as if it was posted almost a year ago,
they'd already covered the response to bullying and they made an arse of responding to it.
Yeah, that's no surprise. Everybody's got a "zero tolerance to bullying" policy and bullying happens everywhere and some teachers actively encourage it but never on official documents. Yeah.
No notice about the incident on the school's front page. They do have a "policies" link but it goes to a directory of documents.
When the Superintendent or a Principal determines that sufficient cause exists that a professional employee be suspended or dismissed from service in the school system, he or she will:
1. Be certain that each such case is supported by defensible records.
2. Determine if the individual is to be suspended immediately with the understanding that the suspension will be subject to restoration of salary and position if an appeal is decided in favor of the individual.
3. Follow the procedures for dismissal or suspension that are contained in applicable laws as well as those included in the current agreement with the teachers' bargaining unit.
4. Provide the individual involved with a written statement that will:
a. Indicate whether the action the Superintendent is taking is dismissal or suspension.
b. State the reason for the suspension or dismissal.
c. Guarantee that all procedures will be in accordance with due process of law.
d. Inform employees who have a right to request a hearing under appropriate laws that they may be represented at such a hearing by counsel of their choice.
Harassment prohibited by the District includes, but is not limited to, harassment on the basis of race, sex, gender identity, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, religion, marital status or disability. Students whose behavior is found to be in violation of this policy will be subject to disciplinary action up to and including suspension or expulsion.
Harassment means conduct of a verbal or physical nature that is designed to embarrass, distress, agitate, disturb or trouble students when:
· Submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of a student’s education or of a student’s participation in school programs or activities;
· Submission to or rejection of such conduct by a student is used as the basis for decisions affecting the student, or;
· Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with a student’s performance or creating an intimidating or hostile learning environment.
Harassment as described above may include, but is not limited to:
· Verbal, physical or written (including texting, blogging, or other technological methods) harassment or abuse;
· Repeated remarks of a demeaning nature;
· Implied or explicit threats concerning one’s grades, achievements, or other school matter.
· Demeaning jokes, stories, or activities directed at the student.
The District will promptly and reasonably investigate allegations of harassment. The Principal of each building will be responsible for handling all complaints by students alleging harassment.
Retaliation against a student, because a student has filed a harassment complaint or assisted or participated in a harassment investigation or proceeding, is also prohibited. A student who is found to have retaliated against another in violation of this policy will be subject to disciplinary action up to and including suspension and expulsion.
No student shall commit any act that furthers gangs or gang-related activities. A gang is any ongoing organization, association, or group of three or more persons, whether formal or informal, having as one of its primary activities the commission of criminal acts, or the purposeful violation of any policy, and having a common name or common identifying sign, colors or symbols. Conduct prohibited by this policy includes:
A. Wearing, possessing, using, distributing, displaying, or selling any clothing, jewelry, emblems, badges, symbols, signs, visible tattoos and body markings, or other items, or being in possession of literature that shows affiliation with a gang, or is evidence of membership or affiliation in any gang or that promotes gang affiliation;
B. Communicating either verbally or non-verbally (gestures, handshakes, slogans, drawings, etc.), to convey membership affiliation in any gang or that promotes gang affiliation;
C. Tagging, or otherwise defacing school or personal property with gang or gang-related symbols or slogans;
In 2007, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts released a document entitled Direct from the Field: A Guide to Bullying Prevention to serve as a tool to meet the needs of teachers, students and parents in addressing issues related to bullying. The passage below is part of the introduction of this guide and serves to set the framework for understanding the complexity of the issues.
Equipping administrators and teachers to respond more effectively is part of the answer, but the problem is complex and defies simple solutions. The majority of bullying incidents happen outside of the eyes and ears of school personnel - on buses, on sidewalks, on the way home, at sporting events and in bathrooms and locker rooms. Complicity among young people not to share knowledge of incidents of bullying with adults is common, often due to fear of retaliation. Ironically, while targets are disempowered by this code of silence, bullies gain power and prestige from it.
Multiple national studies show it is critical to create an environment of caring and respect in the classroom and school - an environment where children and adults have zero tolerance for acts of disrespect. A culture of caring and respect is fundamental; and to create such a culture, character education and the teaching of pro-social values like tolerance, altruism, empathy and self-assertiveness are essential.
As leaders and educators in the Stoughton Public Schools, we are committed to providing an educational climate that is conducive to student engagement and learning. Our roles and responsibilities as educators will continue to include: (1) providing curriculum and programming that allow students the opportunity to develop social and behavior skills appropriate to a school environment; and (2) when a student disrupts the educational environment for others, employing a wide range of interventions appropriate to the nature of the conduct and age of the student. There is no place for student - to - student harassment and bullying within the Stoughton Public Schools as these attacks on human dignity are antithetical to the healthy educational, social and emotional growth of our students.
There are a lot of things in there that could be used to show that the school fucked up, aren't there?
Here's their actual BULLYING PREVENTION AND INTERVENTION PLAN:
PRIORITY STATEMENT
The Stoughton Public Schools (SPS) expects that all members of the school community will treat each other in a civil manner and demonstrate a respect for diversity.
Their definition of bullying includes "repeated," so painting a swastika on someone's classroom door, hanging a black doll in the toilets and writing "kill all muslims" on the board
just once doesn't count? Huh. If one incident
does count they've blown it on pretty much every single paragraph.
