Students at Bannockburn Elementary School in Bethesda are being required to sign out of class to use the restroom after anti-semitic graffiti was found in a fourth- and fifth-grade bathroom stall.
A fifth-grade student found a swastika and curse word on Tuesday in a boys bathroom stall, and it is unclear how many students saw the graffiti before it was removed, Bannockburn Principal Kate Bradley said in a message sent to families.
In response, students are now required to sign out of class before being excused to use the restroom, and school bathrooms are being checked every hour “to prevent this from occurring again,” Bradley wrote. Staff will continue teaching lessons about the importance of kindness, empathy and respect.
“This behavior does not reflect the values of our school and will not be tolerated,” Bradley wrote in the community message.
Bannockburn has an enrollment of about 450 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.
The Student Code of Conduct outlines disciplinary responses to harassment, ranging from community service to expulsion.
County police said they are not investigating the case.
Several reports of bias incidents pertaining to race or religion have been reported in county schools this year, including a swastika painted on an outside wall of Richard Montgomery High School and mock passes distributed at Winston Churchill High School that offered the recipient permission to use a racial slur. A swastika was discovered drawn on a Churchill desk a few days before the mock passes were distributed.
School Superintendent Jack Smith at a recent media briefing said the school system is “not desensitized” to bias incidents, and while there are “serious consequences, sometimes involving law enforcement,” school officials’ key focus is teaching offenders why the actions are not acceptable.
“When someone does something inappropriate, unacceptable or terrible, especially around how people talk or act toward others based on race, religion or sexual orientation, we respond,” Smith said. “Whatever it is, we always want to try to pull students back into school, into the learning community and help them understand in the long life ahead of them, this is not the way to respond to other people. We are a learning organization, and if we ever lose that, we lose our central purpose.”
Caitlynn Peetz can be reached at caitlynn.peetz@moco360.media
