Montgomery County police are investigating a hate incident reported March 2 at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac.
A 10th-grade student was in a classroom at the school when the student received a text with an anti-Semitic message, police spokesman Officer Rick Goodale said Wednesday. The class was discussing the Holocaust at the time, and the student who received the message is Jewish.
The text was sent through an app that masked the user’s phone number, Goodale said, so police do not yet know who sent the message.
Churchill Principal Joan Benz sent a letter to teachers, parents and students about the incident Tuesday, WTOP reported. Benz stated “hurtful comments regarding religion, race, gender, gender identity or ethnicity will not be tolerated.”
The school resource officer is investigating the incident and looking to identify who sent the message, Goodale said.
A number of anti-Semitic or other hate incidents have occurred through the county in the past month, including a bomb threat to Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville on Feb. 27 and graffiti with messages of “white power” found in a Richard Montgomery High School classroom Feb. 14.
Both residents and political leaders have condemned the bomb threat and incidents of bias. On Monday, Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett requested the County Council set aside $225,000 to help the Jewish community increase security at its facilities in the county. The council has scheduled an April 4 public hearing on the request.
