Four schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, were found vandalized Monday with graffiti that included antisemitic messages just a week after vandals also struck a congregation and an elementary school.
“It’s disappointing that teachers and administrators returned to school today, only to face this kind of hateful graffiti on their building walls,” said Guila Franklin Siegel, chief operating officer of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.
The graffiti at the schools — Wootton High School in Rockville, Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Fallsmead Elementary School in Rockville and Strathmore Elementary School in Silver Spring — comes almost a week after vandals struck Congregation Beth El in Bethesda. Two days before that, vulgar messages were spray-painted at Bethesda Elementary School in Bethesda.
Montgomery County police said they received calls about bias-related vandalism at the four schools between 7:30 and 9:30 a.m.
The graffiti included swastikas and anti-Israel messages regarding the country’s ongoing war with Hamas.
“MCPS is working in collaboration with MCPD to investigate these vandalisms,” the police department said in a statement.
The graffiti at the schools also included anti-LGBTQ language, according to a social media post by Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Taylor. He said principals are reaching out to their communities to address the vandalism.
“We firmly denounce divisive actions that perpetuate hate, inequality, and injustice against any person, family, or community,” Taylor said in the statement.
“(The vandalism) will not help anybody, and all it does is divide the community, hurt people deeply and create a school environment that many Jews, whether teachers or students, find threatening and harassing. It makes them feel less safe,” Siegel said.
Montgomery County’s first day of the 2024-2025 school year is Monday, Aug. 26.
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