Does anybody know the incident recently happened in Sidwell?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you all read the Huff post article, which included the SFS HOS letter (in the updated report)? It read as a pretty swift, decisive and unequivocal first step which indicated further action and investigation is occurring.

Let's give the school a chance to get to the bottom of the situation without hysterical knee jerk reactions. Let's not get on social media and give our uninformed opinions. Let's not all announce that our kids' school is better and that this would never happen there. Because something ugly happens everywhere.

Let's try to be reasonable and constructive. Hatred should not be tolerated. But neither should uninformed responses.

Signed,
parent of a different DC private school

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5c809251e4b06ff26ba59049

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The letter from the HoS about the incident...

Dear Parents and Guardians,


I write to communicate troubling news that is necessary to share with the entire parent community.


This afternoon at a student assembly, Upper School students were gathered to hear a presentation about OnSide, a non-profit organization founded by a Sidwell Friends student that seeks to build community and understanding amongst refugee youths in the D.C. area through the game of soccer. At the conclusion of the program, the presenter engaged students in an online learning game called Kahoot, which allows participants to enter answers in real-time using their cell phones. These answers were projected onto the large screens in the Robert L. Smith Meeting Room. Several of the usernames projected onto the screen were racist toward Asians and Native Americans; two usernames included swastikas. As soon as these images were recognized, the Assistant Dean of Students signaled the presenters to turn off the projection and end the presentation. We have begun a thorough investigation into the matter to ascertain the identity of the students responsible for this action.


We are deeply disheartened and disturbed by this incident, which is an extremely serious breach of our School's honor code and harassment policy. There is no place for hate in our community, and I will address the Upper School about the seriousness of the matter tomorrow morning.


I am disappointed, dismayed, and deeply sorry that such an incident could take place at our School. Racism and anti-semitism will not be tolerated in this community. We must strive always to live the question posed in our diversity statement: "How do we nurture a sense of belonging in our community and demonstrate our commitment to a just world?" We will continue, after the manner of Friends, to pursue this query. We are grateful to be in partnership with you as we affirm our values. And we will be in touch as we process this matter and develop appropriate programs to address it.


In peace,


Bryan Garman

Head of School





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Unfortunately my DC told me it is very difficult to identify who did this unless the kid(s) use school wirefi not cell phone data plan

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell is notorious amongst parents for having an impossible to predict discipline policy..even the student handbook leaves the actual consequences essentially up for customization...while often cited as a source for "the rules" when discipline does occur...the handbook is used as needed, when convenient to cite, by administrators who make up the consequences for kids on a case by case basis. Is that a good thing? Not sure. As a Sidwell parent I have seen the school mostly make good calls when it comes to discipline I have heard about--- but I have also seen countless instances where prominent parents' kids act out or kids of families associated with the Board act out, and the school goes much lighter on those kids. This is especially the case when the acting out happens on digital or social media which is a domain the school essentially has no articulated policy or training for kids on. Sometimes they address issues when bullying or sexting occurs on social media, usually they don't..it all kind of depends...it doesn't feel like a safe environment in this respect.

The heads of middle and upper school respectively do not have strong leadership skills or policy on this...it is a common complaint..If you ask kids at Sidwell what the discipline policy is in Middle School or in Upper School, they simply can not tell you. I hope this incident propels the administration of the school to start acting with consistency and clarity so kids stop feeling they are on unfair playing fields when some kids get disciplined for acts others are ignored for--and so kids can know with clarity what the consequences are for various forms of bad behavior.

this comment with respect to discipline in the middle school seems accurate. however it's *not* at all accurate with respect to the upper school. we are new to the upper school, and there are very clear policies about behavior, and the school leaders seem to adhere to that. (ie there is a point system, and students are allocated points for lateness, rudeness, skipping class etc, and once you reach a certain number of points, then you have silent study hall during lunch time for a week, etc.). it's a very consistent, clear system and seems to work.

however this incident is so serious that I would assume it would have far greater disciplinary response. as a parent, I would like follow up from Bryan on whether they find those who did this and would like to hear about the punishment. our freshman became aware only of the swastikas in the user name and wasn't aware of any user names regarding Asian or Native Americans. evidently it all happened fast and there was gasping and stunned silence and an abrupt end of the presentation. the presentation was being given by a student about his service project and he was apparently quite devastated. students, parents, faculty, admin are all dismayed. it's very upsetting that this happened.

Just curious, what words were used in the usernames against Asian/Native Americans?

I don’t even understand where hatred for Asians, Native Americans or Jews comes from - especially from a young person.
Aren’t some of these people their classmates as well? So they have no regard for their own classmates?

Did you read the Huff post article which mentioned the swastikas had been found in 2 other different locations on the campus in the past several months?

[Anonymous]

I suspect the kids can figure out who did this. I went to a school about the same size, and I could pretty readily identify the 2-3 likely suspects for this sort of activity. They’re teens, so they kind of want the notoriety of being identified.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell is notorious amongst parents for having an impossible to predict discipline policy..even the student handbook leaves the actual consequences essentially up for customization...while often cited as a source for "the rules" when discipline does occur...the handbook is used as needed, when convenient to cite, by administrators who make up the consequences for kids on a case by case basis. Is that a good thing? Not sure. As a Sidwell parent I have seen the school mostly make good calls when it comes to discipline I have heard about--- but I have also seen countless instances where prominent parents' kids act out or kids of families associated with the Board act out, and the school goes much lighter on those kids. This is especially the case when the acting out happens on digital or social media which is a domain the school essentially has no articulated policy or training for kids on. Sometimes they address issues when bullying or sexting occurs on social media, usually they don't..it all kind of depends...it doesn't feel like a safe environment in this respect.

The heads of middle and upper school respectively do not have strong leadership skills or policy on this...it is a common complaint..If you ask kids at Sidwell what the discipline policy is in Middle School or in Upper School, they simply can not tell you. I hope this incident propels the administration of the school to start acting with consistency and clarity so kids stop feeling they are on unfair playing fields when some kids get disciplined for acts others are ignored for--and so kids can know with clarity what the consequences are for various forms of bad behavior.

this comment with respect to discipline in the middle school seems accurate. however it's *not* at all accurate with respect to the upper school. we are new to the upper school, and there are very clear policies about behavior, and the school leaders seem to adhere to that. (ie there is a point system, and students are allocated points for lateness, rudeness, skipping class etc, and once you reach a certain number of points, then you have silent study hall during lunch time for a week, etc.). it's a very consistent, clear system and seems to work.

however this incident is so serious that I would assume it would have far greater disciplinary response. as a parent, I would like follow up from Bryan on whether they find those who did this and would like to hear about the punishment. our freshman became aware only of the swastikas in the user name and wasn't aware of any user names regarding Asian or Native Americans. evidently it all happened fast and there was gasping and stunned silence and an abrupt end of the presentation. the presentation was being given by a student about his service project and he was apparently quite devastated. students, parents, faculty, admin are all dismayed. it's very upsetting that this happened.

Just curious, what words were used in the usernames against Asian/Native Americans?

I don’t even understand where hatred for Asians, Native Americans or Jews comes from - especially from a young person.
Aren’t some of these people their classmates as well? So they have no regard for their own classmates?

From their families/ current political environment, etc. it is digital time. Kids can find a lot of things online good or bad

[Anonymous]

It's the dragging of cultures ispervasive on social media -- driven by the meme culture and youtube stars-- jake paul, ben shapiro, the people who are against political correctness.

Parents need to check their kids phones, specifically Instagram DM/group chats and discord. And it's not that these are bad kids, it's peer pressure to be the most outrageous or edgy. They don't think it means anything if it's online, within a friend group and can be erased. They still don't get that social media posts last forever through screen shots.

My kid is referred to as "Jew". A group of kids are trying to bring back the word "kike" to destigmatize it like the african-american hip hop community has done for the n-word. This is shocking for parents who don't understand technology -- It's a lawless world online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holy! How come the other instances weren’t in the Principal’s note? There really has to be zero tolerance if SFS takes itself seriously as a moral leader.

The other instances were addressed in the sperate email

[Anonymous]

what separate email? the first I've heard of the other instances was in the huffington post article? if those two instances are true we should have heard about them when they happened. it also makes you feel that what happened yesterday is probably connected and not just "stupidity"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what separate email? the first I've heard of the other instances was in the huffington post article? if those two instances are true we should have heard about them when they happened. it also makes you feel that what happened yesterday is probably connected and not just "stupidity"

They need to find out who it was.

[Anonymous]

How can they find out who did it? A very crude sexual term was a Kahoot user name in my kids classroom and they never figured out who it was -out of just 25 kids.

[Anonymous]

Ok so why in the heck is a school using a program that allows kids to upload untraceable information?? Seems like the school needs to do an overhaul of the tech they are employing or expect this kind of stuff to happen again and perhaps be even worse.

[Anonymous]

Maybe I'm naive but I can't believe there are key board icons of swastikas even available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe I'm naive but I can't believe there are key board icons of swastikas even available.

Oh honey...
Yes. That stuff is all available online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How can they find out who did it? A very crude sexual term was a Kahoot user name in my kids classroom and they never figured out who it was -out of just 25 kids.

I suspect they won't, unless someone cracks and confesses or brags about it. If the same person did all three incidents, eventually they'll slip up and be caught. If so, those parents probably need to look into residential treatment. Such poor impulse control/ disinihibition suggests a kid headed for jail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok so why in the heck is a school using a program that allows kids to upload untraceable information?? Seems like the school needs to do an overhaul of the tech they are employing or expect this kind of stuff to happen again and perhaps be even worse.

if you read the thread, you would know it was not the "school" giving the presentation. it was a high school student giving a presentation on his service project. and he was using a popular program/app called kahoot that allows you to creative an interactive learning game in real time. you can cast blame wherever you want but calling for an overhaul of the tech at Sidwell is ridiculous. as it is, I would imagine that they would now ban this program because of the option to create a username. that's a shame because it's a simple, easy program that makes presentations more interesting and fun.