Published in the December 19, 2017 edition.
WAKEFIELD — As educators and others prepared for a parent forum tonight aimed at dealing with discrimination and hatred, another depiction of anti-Semitic graffiti was discovered yesterday afternoon at the Galvin Middle School.
This is the third such finding in less than a month at the town’s most populous educational facility.
Tonight’s forum begins at 6 in the Galvin Learning Commons. School officials had already scheduled the forum after the discovery of a swastika in a seventh grade boys’ bathroom late last week.
Galvin Principal Adam Colantuoni sent out the following today:
“This is a reminder of the parent forum tonight at 6:00 pm in our Galvin Learning Commons. As you are aware, we continue to respond to incidents of anti-Semitic discriminatory graffiti found in our boys’ bathrooms. Unfortunately we are investigating another incident from yesterday afternoon.
“I would like to clarify some inaccurate information that has come to my attention regarding the incident last week. Information has circulated that the words “Happy Hanukkah’ were included in the graffiti. This is not true.
“Our entire faculty and staff have a heightened awareness in regard to monitoring student bathroom use and we plan to limit the number of available boys’ bathrooms this week while we continue our investigation.
“We encourage you to speak with your children about coming forward with any information. All information shared will remain confidential.
“The safety of our students is our number one priority. We continue to emphasize the positive responses from our student body and will continue to empower them to stand up to hateful and discriminatory behavior in our schools and community.”
