Parkway West Middle School has committed to working with the Anti-Defamation League to add sensitivity training, according to League and district officials, following an incident this week where students targeted Jewish classmates during “Hit A Jew Day.”

Karen Aroesty, regional director of the League, said she and others met with Parkway West Middle Principal Linda Lelonek this morning, and the group came up with several things to do at the 850-student Chesterfield middle school, including additional training for students and teachers, and fast-tracking the school’s existing Holocaust unit.

Aroesty emphasized that this is not a student problem alone.

“You can’t say there is a problem with the students, and it only needs to be addressed with the students,” she said. “There is a parent component here. (Students) pick up things they learn from home. As much as parents would like to think they are free of bias and don’t teach it to their children, sometimes they do.”

But she also said that she didn’t think the students who created and acted out Monday’s “Hit A Jew Day” were intentionally anti-Semitic.

“I don’t think these kids operated out of an intentional anti-Semitism toward Jews,” she said. “I think these are kids who were unaware of the impact of their behavior. And they need to learn: Words matter.”

“This is an atmosphere in which it is not unreasonable for the Jewish community to be concerned,” she said, citing a local increase in bias incidents against Jews. “That said, the Parkway response is entirely appropriate.”

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