Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
PASADENA, MD (WMAL) – Anne Arundel County School administrators are taking action to try to stop hatred and bigotry after a number of recent racist and anti-Semitic incidents at schools and in the community.
Thursday the school system will host a community meeting, “All Means All: Communities Cultivating Acceptance and Inclusion,” to discuss what’s been happening and come up with ways to stem the problem.
The disturbing incidents include nooses being hanged at Chesapeake Bay Middle School, a Swastika being drawn on a school toilet seat, KKK flyers being distributed in some communities and a student at Chesapeake High School receiving an anonymous electronic message with a picture of a Confederate flag and a caption with a racial slur.
“Taking into account events that have transpired over the last year, I felt it was critically important that we hold the first of these community-oriented meetings in Pasadena,” school system Superintendent George Arlotto said in a statement.
School spokesperson Bob Mosier said the first meeting will be held at an elementary school because conversations about inclusion and acceptance need to happen with kids when they are young.
Thursday’s meeting is meant to engage the community and figure out how schools, local groups, families and others can come together to stop the bigotry and hate.
“It’s not a problem that schools by themselves or any one entity by themselves are gonna solve. It’s going to take everyone coming together to change the conversation,” said Mosier.
At the meeting students will talk about how the incidents are impacting them, data will be presented about bias-motivated incidents in Chesapeake cluster schools, and the school system will talk about what it’s doing to stop these behaviors.
Thursday’s meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. at Jacobsville Elementary school in Pasadena and will be the first of many on the subject.
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