By Stefanie Clarke and Mindy Miller
On the eve of a new school year, Boulder Valley School District Superintendent Rob Anderson acknowledged what Jewish families have been saying for years: Antisemitism in our schools is not a series of isolated incidents, but a problem demanding a systemic response.
Anderson acknowledged the district had “fallen short†and outlined concrete steps to do better. For Jewish families who have spent years sounding the alarm, that acknowledgment is the first step.
Tuesday night¶¶Òõap school board meeting should have been an opportunity to hear from those families. It should have been a chance for Jewish students and parents to share deeply personal experiences of bullying, intimidation, harassment and violence, and for the community to reflect on the district¶¶Òõap proposed actions and what more needs to be done.
Instead, the meeting was hijacked.
We have seen this pattern before — and many of us recognized the people bringing it into the room.
Since Oct. 7, many of the same agitators affiliated with groups including the Democratic Socialists of America and Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center have dominated Boulder City Council meetings with demands about Gaza and Israel, often consuming hours of public comment on an international conflict over which our local elected officials have no authority.
On Tuesday, they brought that same political crusade to the school board.
This time, the people bearing the consequences were sitting in the room.
Three courageous Southern Hills students stood before the board and spoke about their experiences. Jewish parents described bullying, intimidation, harassment and violence. Some spoke through tears. Some described being afraid to send their children back to school this week.
And rather than listen, a vocal faction with little or no connection to the district hijacked a meeting about Jewish safety to attack the ADL, Israel and Zionism — injecting the very hostility that has made its way into our schools and led to the bullying and harassment of Jewish children.
Whatever your politics, every child deserves to feel safe in school. Jewish students are not proxies for the Israeli government. They are not representatives of the ADL. They should not be expected to answer for Zionism, Gaza or a war thousands of miles away in order to be protected from bullying and hate in their own classrooms.
Yet the people who have spent nearly three years demanding their singular political cause be at the forefront of every discussion and debate showed remarkably little interest in centering the painful experiences of the Jewish children sitting right in front of them.
Instead, the ADL became the latest convenient target in a familiar campaign to delegitimize mainstream Jewish voices and push Jewish pain aside.
For years, Jewish families have been sounding the alarm. Their concerns went ignored. It was only when the ADL filed a civil rights complaint that the district finally took notice and began to act.
If your response to children being bullied simply for being Jewish is to attack the organization that finally got their voices heard, rather than reckon with what happened to them, you are demonstrating the problem — not helping solve it.
Parents are justifiably frustrated that it took this long for the district to act. But Superintendent Anderson has acknowledged the problem and proposed concrete action. The district now has an obligation to rebuild trust with Jewish families.
BVSD is at an inflection point.
The question is not whether everyone agrees with the ADL. It is not what anyone thinks about Israel. Jewish students should not have to pass a political litmus test to be protected from hate.
The question is much simpler: When Jewish children are bullied, intimidated, harassed or subjected to violence because they are Jewish, what are we going to do about it?
For the first time in far too long, BVSD appears prepared to answer that question.
We should not allow anyone to change the subject.
Stefanie Clarke and Mindy Miller are the co-executive directors of the Colorado Jewish Action Alliance.
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