After Sunday’s unfortunate incident with a swastika etched in the walkway at Old Greenwich School, there was another incident this week – this time at Central Middle School.
On Wednesday, the district learned two swastikas had been drawn onto testing dividers used in an eighth grade classroom.
In an email to CMS families on Thursday, Greenwich Schools Superintendent Dr. Toni Jones and CMS principal Tom Healy said the students who discovered the swastikas immediately reported the incident to their teacher who in turn notified school administration.
“While the GPS’ Safety & Security Department and school administration started an investigation, it seems unlikely that the person responsible for this antisemitic act will be found,” they wrote. “The testing dividers are used across multiple class periods, with students constantly moving in and out.”
Jones and Healy said that moving forward, new procedures had been developed to assign dividers to individual students in each class as a way to hold individuals accountable should any future incidents occur.
Prior to testing and assignment, teachers will inspect the dividers, assign the dividers, and then check them again at the conclusion of the class.
“While we have no reason to believe that there is a connection to this and the recent after-hours event at the exterior of the Old Greenwich School, as a community, we need to reinforce the idea that bigotry and hate, in any form, has no place in Greenwich or at our public schools,” Jones and Healy continued.
They noted that while staff was currently teaching about the evils of antisemitism and the Holocaust as part of the district’s curriculum, they encouraged families to have age-appropriate conversations with their children to reinforce kindness and tolerance for everyone.
School counselors are available for assistance and families were asked that if they had any information related to the incident to reach out to the district or school administration.