Parkway West Middle students to be punished for “Hit A Jew Day”
Four or five Parkway West Middle School students will be disciplined after administrators found out this week that they had created a “Hit A Jew Day” at the Chesterfield school.
Principal Linda Lelonek learned Monday night that her sixth graders had started an unofficial “spirit week” last week.
According to a Parkway School District representative, the students started with “Hug A Friend Day,” moved to “High Five Day,” “Hit A Tall Person Day,” and then, finally, this Monday, to “Hit A Jew Day.”
The students generally were not being violent or aggressive, said Cathy Kelly, communications coordinator for the district, but instead just “tapping” the students singled out by the theme of the day. At least one student, however, did slap another student, Kelly said.
“It was almost like a tag thing,” Principal Lelonek said. “But then it changed.”
None of the students told any adult about the day, Lelonek said. “They said ‘We were just playing.’”
“Not until Monday did any children realize this isn’t good, we’ve crossed the lines,” she said.
Then, Monday evening, Lelonek got a call from the mother of one of the school’s estimated 35 Jewish students.
Lelonek called an all-sixth-grade assembly first thing Tuesday morning at the 850-student school.
Most of the students knew of the “spirit week,” she said, but didn’t understand what they’d done.
She asked them all if they’d heard of each designated “day.” She said they nearly all raised their hands each time. Then she asked, “What’s tomorrow going to be? Hit a principal day?”
“You could have heard a pin drop,” she said. “One started saying, ‘Oh, no, Ms. Lelonek.’”
“I said, ‘Don’t say a word.’”
Lelonek said discipline will range from parent conferences to suspension.
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.
Why does the school know there are 35 Jewish students? Is that on the Parkway registration? I wouldn’t think that would be something the school needed to know.