Parkway Schools superintendent apologizes
Moments ago, Parkway School District Superintendent Robert Malito posted a public apology for the actions of the students at Parkway West Middle School following Monday’s student-titled “Hit A Jew Day.”
He begins the letter:
It is with both sadness and a sense of outrage that I share this letter with the Parkway community. Many of you may have heard about a distressing incident that occurred at Parkway West Middle School over the past week. I have heard from a number of you who are understandably angry and upset. I, too, am angry.
First and foremost, I want to publicly apologize for the actions of the students involved. I also want to share some of the facts surrounding the situation and let you know what we are doing about it. Additionally, I want to ask for your help as we work together carefully and constructively to move forward in a positive way for our students and community.
And then, in the end, asks for support and understanding:
It is hard to understand why these 11- and 12-year-olds acted in such a disrespectful manner. We work very hard in Parkway to teach students appropriate behavior and on any given day the majority of our 18,000 students do just that. But we cannot use this as an excuse to minimize the gravity of what these students have done. It is painful and hurtful and we are committed to doing whatever we can to ensure it does not happen again.
I ask for your support and involvement in this effort and hope by working together we can fulfill our obligation to educate our students and prepare them to be successful, contributing members of a democratic society.
The Grade is the St. Louis region’s premier blog on education and child welfare. To read other recent posts, go to www.stltoday.com/thegrade.
Public, parochial and non-parochial private schools can do all they want to inculcate appropriate and respectful behavior, but the education about treating others equally, decently and tolerantly begins at home. 11 and 12 year old don’t just pick these kinds of attitudes up spontaneously. They have heard or seen them somewhere before. If not at school, then were else? Working with these childrens’ parents to address the problem will help everyone in the long run, because it’s usually the case that when a person hates people of one group (gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, class, etc.), she or he hates people from another group as well (as well as her or himself).
Sounds like these kids watched too much Borat. Not all movies are for all ages.
I think that if we just keep educating more and more people. And then KEEP educating them. And then we take them and EDUCATE them some more. Then we take their parents and we educate THEM! Then we educate their parents to educate their kids then this stuff will never happen anymore! Except in blog comments where people express how they really feel.
If anyone is a student of history, you’ll notice that these problems have been around for…awhile. Perhaps we ought to dig deeper in our post-modern, existential, apologetic, post-enlightened culture for answers beyond education. Evil is a problem of the heart, not the mind. there is something that deals with issues of the heart, but we see it as intolerant. Ironic isn’t it?
One way to begin is not to frame the response with anger or outrage. While understandable, it is more of the same.
Well, ain’t this signs of the times?
In history, during difficult economic, political, biological, anything…times, it has always been politically appropriate, when the people in power couldn’t solve its problems, to scapegoat the Jews. After all, didn’t they kill Jesus? Nevermind that it was a Roman cross onto which he was nailed, that a Roman scourged him with a whip, it was a Roman who put a crown of thorns on him, and it was a Roman who pierced his side with a spear. All that doesn’t matter. Ask any pinhead, they’ll say that the Jews killed Jesus. Truth is, the Jews didn’t know what to do with him, that’s why they sent him back to the Romans. That was the crime that the Jews have paid for for the last two thousand years.
When there’s a big catastrophe, blame the Jews. The Jews were blamed for the Plague in the Dark Ages; they were poisoning the water. It had nothing to do with rats and fleas. When the Reichmark was failing during the Weymar Republic in Germany, it was the Jews who were deflating the Mark, not the fact that the government was printing money so fast that the paper was worth more than the money. (Sounds recent, doesn’t it?)
We have seen in recent weeks a reawakening of hate. I’ve heard words in the last decade that I’d never dreamed would have been part of our American political landscape like torture.
Recently, we’ve seen the resurgence of McCarthy-speak: Un-American activities? Socialist? Communist?
In Rwonda, the speach degraded to the point that the radio shows were refering to the Tutsi’s as, “Rats”, “Cockroaches.” It wasn’t until the Hutu started going after the Tutsi with machetes that the U.N. stepped in. It had gone too far.
Back to the Jews. They’ve always known that they were always going to be the scapegoat. You can say that these were just kids, but the thought came from somewhere. When armies of lawyers would decend on someone who did this to Hispanics, Blacks, Gays and Lesbians; we accept the apology of someone who allows this to happen to the Jewish race. Where did, “Hit a Jew day” come from? It came from hate. We have to stand up to this and call it what it is.
Yes, these are just kids, kids that are learning and should be punished but forgiven and hope that they learn from the punishment. What are they learning from the steady stream of hate speech spewing from the politics of right now?
I wonder if the same people on this board commenting about intolerance have made comments about (fat) people and mentally challenged people in front of thir kids. Intolerance runs the whole gambit. It’s easy to judge others but what comes out of your mouth in front of your kids regarding the things I mentioned above or when someone cuts you off in traffic when your kids are in the back seat. STOP AND TAKE A LONG LOOK AT YOUR WORDS ABOUT OTHER INTOLERANCES AS WELL!!!! If you plant the seeds of hatred about anything early on with your chilren they will think intolerance about anything is ok.
if it had been hit a protestant day that would have been ok. they are just performing affirmative action. just trying to make up for past wrongs ( sarcasm does not transfer to text that well)
“We work very hard in Parkway to teach students appropriate behavior and on any given day the majority of our 18,000 students do just that. But we cannot use this as an excuse to minimize the gravity of what these students have done.”
That’s a nice phrase! I like how it simultaneously says that this is out of character for the district, while it’s still important to be addressing — it minimizes the incident, yet communicates importance at the same time. I’ve got to remember how that was put. Very elegant. A load of crap, yet very elegant.
I want to know where these kids came up with these ideas. Clearly the school district is incapable in preventing these kings of horrible things from happening. The Parkway school district should be embarrased and penalized for this atroscity.
Mr.Molito’s apology was silly. He had nothing to apologize about. Does he think he is the parent of all those kids? If so he has been a very busy man.
The parents are responsible for th3ir kids, not him. Molito had a chance to put the blame where it belonged, on the parents! He didn’t.
Why?