Racist and antisemitic graffiti was found in a Belmont High School (BHS) bathroom in the first five days of school, according to district officials.
In an email to parents, Principal Isaac Taylor said the district verified two incidents of graffiti. School officials received a report on Sept. 4 that a racial slur was carved into a bathroom stall. On Sept. 8, the district received another report that a swastika and a racial slur had been drawn on a bathroom wall.
Taylor said the school will work with Belmont police to conduct “a thorough and balanced investigation to hold the persons found responsible for this accountable for their actions and impact.”
“Starting the year by finding hate speech in our shared spaces at BHS is deeply distressing. Racist and antisemitic language, symbols, and acts are unacceptable at Belmont High School and directly violate our values of equity and kindness,” Taylor wrote in the email. “We have been working on building a positive school culture over the past several years and see these kinds of incidents as undermining that effort. We will continue to address this proactively through curriculum, community conversations, and classroom work, as well as respond to individual incidents by identifying those responsible and holding them accountable.”
Superintendent Jill Geiser and School Committee Chair Meghan Moriarty addressed the Sept. 8 incident at the School Committee meeting that same evening.
“This report is deeply disturbing and unacceptable,” Geiser said. “This is a symbol of hate that absolutely has no place in our schools. The schools are a place where students, staff and families need to be able to feel safe, and this type of symbol undermines that.”
Moriarty said “a lot of work” had been done in the past several years to address concerns over acts of hate and bias in the schools as a whole.
“I think incidents like these remind us why that work must continue and why it matters,” she said. “As adults, we have a responsibility to say clearly that this is not acceptable, and to continue the work of making sure that every student knows that they belong in our schools.”
Junior Ganza Masozera, a representative to the School Committee, told the committee that students are “very aware” of the incidents.
“It’s unfortunately been a recurring theme over the last few years,” Masozera said.
According to Masozera, student leaders have held conversations about acts of bias and hate within the school, hoping to prompt change from the student body itself. He added that while many students appreciate support from the district and educators, the feeling is the schools need to do more.
“[It’s important] to normalize talking about it and making it an issue because it is an issue, because what tends to happen is we come together, there’s a big assembly about it, and then the whole process seems a little bit redundant because it’s the same thing,” Masozera said. “… We have the same discussion year after year.”
In 2022, the Belmont School District Equity Audit found that Black and LGBTQ+ students reported feeling a lower sense of belonging across the schools. During audit group interviews with Black and Hispanic students, one student at the time said, “A lot of the white kids here have said the N-word. And like we all know who they are. And nothing happens to them. Like they get sent out one day and then they come back.”
“I again feel upset and absolutely disappointed that it has occurred in our school community. This violates our values,” Geiser said. “I am asking our Belmont community to equally condemn this act and support our efforts to ensure the kind of supportive learning environment, prioritizing belonging for all of our students, staff and families, which they need and deserve.”
Students can report bias or hate incidents online.
