Petaluma school district denounces hate crimes

Petaluma’s school board unanimously passed a resolution denouncing hate crimes and white supremacy on school campuses during their board meeting Tuesday evening.

The resolution, which also reaffirms the district’s right to refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials, was one the board had been working on for months and was crafted in order to boost protections for students on campus, Petaluma City Schools Board of Education President Ellen Webster said.

“We’ve known we needed to make a statement,” Webster said after the meeting. “It was something we all felt really strongly about.”

The resolution came on the heels of a pair of recent incidents in which students in the district have appeared in photos featuring a hand signal sometimes linked to white supremacists.

In the most recent incident, which occurred over the weekend, a group of boys posed outside a dance at Petaluma High School, with one of them making a controversial “OK” hand gesture. A photo of the boys was posted on Instagram.

The school’s principal, a district official and Webster each acknowledged they were aware of the incident but declined to provide additional comment, citing student privacy.

The photo, originally posted onto Instagram but copied and shared on Facebook on Sunday by a member of the progressive organizing group Indivisible Petaluma, shows two of the five teens holding an American flag bearing the image of a coiled snake and the words “Don’t Tread on Me.”

The image and words are taken from the Gadsden flag, which dates back to the American Revolution and is popular with libertarian and conservative political groups.

A third person in the center of the photo is making an “OK” gesture with each hand. The once innocent symbol, which can also be viewed as a “WP,” for “white power,” has been deployed as a joke in recent years by conservatives seeking to incite or upset liberals, according to the Anti-?Defamation League.

It has also been displayed by actual white supremacists. The suspect in a pair of mosque shootings in New Zealand, in which 51 people were killed, flashed the symbol during a courtroom appearance. The suspect is also believed to be the author of an anti-Muslim, white supremacist manifesto posted online.

The Petaluma High incident is the second time the gesture has caused controversy in the district.

Officials at Kenilworth Junior High School in May asked students to return their yearbooks after the school published in the book several photos of students flashing different controversial hand signs, including one showing three members of the 8th-grade basketball team making the “OK” sign.

The intent of the people in the photograph posted over the weekend, as well as those in the Kenilworth Junior High School incident, was not clear.

The district has opened an investigation into the Petaluma High photo, Liz Chacón, Petaluma City Schools’ assistant superintendent of student services, said in an email statement. She provided no details about the photo, stating that the school needed to protect the privacy of students.

“Please know that we take this very seriously and the situation is being addressed,” Chacón said. “As a school and district, we stand, wholeheartedly, for inclusivity and ?anti-racism.”

Robyn NiConney, a parent of a Petaluma High sophomore, said she first learned about the photograph after seeing it on the Indivisible Petaluma Facebook page. Her daughter told her mother that someone she followed on Instagram had posted the photograph.

NiConney said her daughter recognized some of the teens in the photo as fellow students at the school, and told her mother she remembered seeing some of the people in the group holding the flag at a back-to-school dance held on the Petaluma High School campus on Saturday.

A screenshot of the Instagram post obtained by The Press Democrat showed the person who uploaded the photo tagged himself as being at Petaluma High School.

NiConney, who said she was upset by the photo, emailed Justin Mori, the high school’s principal, about her concerns. He responded by saying he had seen and talked to the group holding the flag prior to the dance, but did not see them making the hand gesture, NiConney said.

Mori assured NiConney via email that the school was taking action in response to the photograph, NiConney said. Mori declined a request for an interview about the incident Tuesday.

“I couldn’t believe this was happening on school property,” NiConney said of the photo. “I think they for sure would have had an assembly on Monday (to discuss the photo with students) but they didn’t.”

Zahyra Garcia, a co-chair of Indivisible Petaluma and the North Bay Organizing Project’s Petaluma chapter, as well as a commissioner for the Sonoma County Commision on Human Rights, said the photo was concerning to her, especially in light of the El Paso, Texas, Walmart mass shooting earlier this month, in which the suspected gunman reportedly told police he targeted Mexicans.

She said wanted to see Petaluma schools do more to educate students and staff on representation and equity in light of both the Petaluma High School and Kenilworth Junior High incidents, which can be harmful to students of color.

“I’m not blaming these kids; I’m not looking for these kids to be punished, but I’m looking for these kids to be educated and for restorative justice,” Garcia said. “Regardless of intent, that action is impacting our marginalized communities, our students of color and our LGBTQ+ groups.”

Shelly Dieterle, a local activist and an enrollment coordinator for Live Oak School, also in Petaluma, said she felt it was important to attend Tuesday’s school board meeting to see how board members would act on the resolution.

She said she wished it included a clearer definition of what was considered a hate crime, as well as a better explanation of what steps schools would take if someone was found to have committed a hate crime, but said she found the resolution’s passage a meaningful first step.

“I do think it will make a difference,” Dieterle said of the resolution. “When incidents happen with juveniles, there needs to be clear expectations stated.”

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com.