Serious discussion of incidents needed

Serious discussion
of incidents needed

The residents of Manal-apan and Englishtown who pay tens of millions of dollars every year to support the operation of the Manal-apan-Englishtown Regional School District should be asking administrators and the Board of Education some serious questions this week.

Within the past month the Manalapan Englishtown Middle School, which houses seventh- and eighth-graders, has been the scene of at least three acts of bias graffiti vandalism and one reported assault on a 13-year-old student by two other students.

At the Wemrock Brook School, which houses fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students, police were notified about a March 31 incident in which an 11-year-old boy threatened to shoot the principal with his BB gun.

We don’t know if the boy had the gun with him when he threatened the principal.

Just what is going on in these schools?

One school district official has said that some of the incidents in which a swastika — an evil reminder of the Holocaust that cost millions of people their lives during World War II — was drawn on the wall of a MEMS bathroom occurred while students were studying the Holocaust.

Maybe it’s time for someone to rethink the Holocaust curriculum, which appears to be inspiring, rather than stopping, acts of hate.

For years, Tom Sherman, a veteran administrator in the district who is known for his no-nonsense attitude, was the principal at MEMS and the school seemed to operate without these types of problems.

A couple of years ago, for reasons that were not explained, the board reassigned Sherman and made him principal of the Pine Brook School, which houses fourth-through sixth-graders.

Today, we are wondering if any board members are rethinking that move, given the bad news that’s been coming out of MEMS the past few weeks.

Residents of a school district that prides itself on its students’ outstanding academic achievement should demand answers to some situations that administrators have not seemed anxious to provide.