Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Joey Gallo returns, but Nats endure another quiet offensive night

Bryce Harper, Joey Gallo and a bond forged by baseball since they were kids

A taco will always be a taco — no matter what we call it

She finished chemo then got a medical degree: ‘The dream is real now’

Puppy abandoned with heart-rending note is adopted, named Minerva

Man, 91, shocks tiny firehouse with $500K gift: ‘Nobody knew how much I’d saved’

Blue Origin to fly again as space tourism struggles to get off the ground

These ISIS news anchors are AI fakes. Their propaganda is real.

Boeing delays spaceflight again as it continues to struggle with leak

At campus protests, ‘DO NOT TALK TO THE MEDIA’!

Trump’s lawyer charges Michael Cohen lied to jury

CNN gets a presidential debate — and a much-needed win

Mexican taquería’s new Michelin star puts street eats on par with gourmet food

Police believe a U.S. rapist killed several women in Canada

With its energy network nearly destroyed, Ukraine already fears the winter

How Jim Jordan tried to connect the dots on Biden’s $8 million book deal

Biden’s false claim that inflation was 9 percent when he took office

Did Obamacare ‘massively’ increase the cost of health care?

‘Never Trump?’ ‘Never Biden’ voters might loom larger.

Ukraine gamble pays off: Republicans face little backlash in primaries

Book Tour: At home with Amor Towles

In photos: The scene in Houston after severe storms killed at least 7 people

Civilians flee new Russian attacks on Ukraine border

Russia shows resilience. There is more to do for Ukraine.

Trump promises tax cuts and fewer rules. CEOs shouldn’t fall for it.

Tariffs against China hamstring the transition to a clean energy future

The world’s coolest hotels want to tell you a story

Cruise ships to return to Baltimore two months after bridge collapse 

Some cruise prices are about to get a little more clear

Carolyn Hax: Is it weird to ask other people to care about you?

Ask Amy: Can’t a single woman eat alone without interruption?

Miss Manners: Miss Manners: Gag gift falls flat

Trump

Bill O'Leary

A Montgomery County teacher is on leave after screenshots of a Facebook post purported to show her falsely claiming that the Oct. 7 Hamas music festival massacre that killed 260 was a hoax, her school said. She also posted that “Palestinian’s are being killed and their organs are being sold. How is real life scarier than the movies??” according to the screenshots, which circulated widely in Montgomery County over the weekend. There is no evidence of organ harvesting.

“Debunked! No music festival attack. Babies were not burned. Women were not violated. Hospitals were attacked on purpose,” Sabrina Khan-Williams — who teaches world studies in addition to diversity, equity and inclusion at Tilden Middle School — wrote, according to the screenshots. She did not immediately respond to requests to comment for this article.

Montgomery County Public Schools spokesman Chris Cram said that the teacher was placed on administrative leave and that an investigation was underway, guided by school policy and state law. He said he could not share further details because the case is a personnel matter.

The Rockville, Md., middle school’s principal, Sapna Hopkins, informed parents Monday that she was aware of social media posts made by a staff member at the school. She didn’t name the staff member or detail what the posts said.

“These social media posts have undermined our school’s values of respect and belonging,” Hopkins wrote. “I understand the deep distress and hurt this incident has caused our community.”

Parents in the middle school community were outraged at the Facebook posts, which they say espouse the same rhetoric used by Holocaust deniers and antisemites. Several students at the school and their families are Jewish and have direct ties to Israel, two parents interviewed by The Washington Post said. Some of those families know people who were killed in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas or are being held hostage by the militant group.

“It feels especially jarring” to have someone who teaches diversity and inclusion “be also the same person who is doing real hatred,” said Tamar Lechter, a parent of a seventh-grader at the school. “It [raises] the question of what is the training and what are we demanding of teachers who come into that space?” said Lechter, who is Jewish and has U.S. and Israeli citizenship.

The middle school community already had experienced two antisemitic incidents in the past month: Drawings of swastikas were found on campus twice in October.

Several Montgomery County students and staffers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/11/01/dc-area-schools-report-more-bias-incidents-against-jews-palestinians/" target=_blank>have reported antisemitic events</a> in the past year amid <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/11/01/israel-gaza-jews-antisemitism/" target=_blank>a rising nationwide trend</a>. Such incidents have soared during the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/israel-hamas-war/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Israel-Gaza war</a>.

Members of Tilden’s parent-teacher-student association contacted the Montgomery County Public Schools central office to “seek support for addressing the antisemitic incidents at Tilden and broader challenges related to diversity, equity and inclusion,” the organization’s board wrote in an email late Monday night obtained by The Post. The board reached out multiple times Monday again, ahead of a PTSA meeting scheduled for Tuesday.

“However, we are sorry to report that we have not received adequate support from the MCPS central office to hold a productive or informative meeting,” they wrote, adding that the central office from Maryland’s largest school system “has not been responsive.” They listed email addresses for several central office employees and county school board members, and urged other parents to request help.

In her email to the community, Hopkins, the principal, said she contacted the school system’s Office of Student Welfare and Compliance and Office of Student Support and Well-Being to provide support to students.

Cram, the schools spokesman, said PTSA has received support. “[T]he schools director met with the PTA board on Tuesday night, during which follow-up actions, including planning a community meeting, were discussed.”

The PTSA also reached out to local organizations to provide anti-bias training to the school community. They thanked the principal for “supporting us in these efforts.” The PTSA did not respond to a request for an interview Tuesday.

Lechter said in an interview that she was uncertain about whether she should send her seventh-grade daughter to school after reviewing the teacher’s social media posts. Her child ultimately went to school Tuesday, though it was “a difficult choice,” because it was unclear whether the teacher would be on campus. She emailed several central office employees Tuesday morning — including Schools Superintendent Monifa B. McKnight — and asked for more information about Khan-Williams’s status.

She received a response Tuesday afternoon from Brian Stockton, the school system’s chief of staff, who copied text from David Adams and Michael Zarchin, officials from the Office of Support and Well-Being. Adams and Zarchin said it was a personnel matter that they could not discuss further, but central office employees were working directly with the school’s principal.

Another parent of a seventh-grader in one of Khan-Williams’s world studies classes said the teacher wasn’t at school Monday or Tuesday. The child has described the teacher as fun and said they enjoyed learning in her classroom, the parent said. One of the hardest parts of this incident for the parent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for her family’s safety, was having a conversation with her child about the teacher’s social media posts. Her seventh-grader was having “a really hard time reconciling” that a favored teacher had said such things, said the parent, who is Jewish.

Tilden officials also found swastikas on campus last year. The school held an assembly for each grade level, but the parent recalled her seventh-grader saying that school administrators had spoken about kindness and said nothing about antisemitism. The parent said she couldn’t take writing another angry, frightened email to school administrators and receiving “a lackluster response.” She said it seems as though the school system isn’t prioritizing fighting antisemitism in its schools.

“I feel like their lack of response to our PTSA who has been urgently requesting support unfortunately confirms that in a lot of ways for me,” the parent said. “At this point that’s my biggest concern: Who is going to stand up for us? Who is going to fight this if MCPS isn’t even responding to requests for help?”

<i>This story was updated Thursday to include a response from schools spokesman Chris Cram</i>.

University of Kansas, BS in journalism

Nicole Asbury is a local reporter for The Washington Post covering education and K-12 schools in Maryland.

Nicole Asbury

washpost

Montgomery teacher denies Hamas raid, accuses Israel of organ theft

the-washington-post

Montgomery county school officials give reporters a tour of College Gardens elementary to show room arrangements, and other measures that the system hopes will prevent the spread of the coronavirus when school reopens in August, on July 09 in Rockville, MD.

The Washington Post

staff

Montgomery county school officials give reporters a tour of College Gardens elementary to show room arrangements, and other measures that the system hopes will prevent the spread of the coronavirus when school reopens in August, on July 09 in Rockville,..

Valerie Strauss

Jay Mathews

Education

prism://prism.query/site,/local/education&limit=20

Local Education

The Washington Post Local Education section provides coverage and analysis of schools, home school and education policy for DC, Maryland and Virginia. With in-depth coverage and analysis of Washington, DC education and schools, including DC charter schools, DC Schools Chancellor, DC teacher contract news and map of DC schools.

Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning.

D.C., Md. & Va.

The Washington Post offers breaking local news, weather and traffic information for the DC, Maryland and Virginia metro areas, plus information about school districts, crime, government, religion, the lottery,restaurant reviews and obituaries.