Hercules school hopes to teach a lesson after graffiti barrage

More than a few schools have been peppered with racist, anti-Semitic graffiti. But not too many have done more about it than bemoan their bad luck and send out a janitorial crew to clean up the mess.

That's not the case at Hanna Ranch Elementary School in Hercules, which was plastered with racist and anti-Semitic graffiti sometime between the last day of school on Friday, June 9 and Sunday, June 11.

"They're not trying to sweep this under the rug," said Tami Holzman, the Anti-Defamation League's regional assistant director.

"That's very atypical of the response we get from schools."

Paul Ehara, the director of Communications for the West Contra Costa Unified School District noted it was not the first time he's worked with the ADL; El Cerrito High was hit with graffiti last year.

With students out of school, administrators in Contra Costa are unsure how, exactly, to make a teachable moment out of the graffiti incident. Nina Grotch, an ADL education coordinator, suggested a mural, an idea that appealed to administrators, though Ehara noted it is too early to adopt that or any step.

"We want to clearly let the community know that this is counter to what the district is about. We are one of the most diverse districts," he said of the incident.

Along with obscenities directed against Jews and blacks, swastikas and crude drawings of hands giving the middle finger, Holzman was surprised to see several "triskeles," a symbol resembling three interlocked number sevens derived from ancient Celtic artwork.

The triskele has been adopted by a number of white supremacist organizations, including South Africa's Afrikaner Resistance Movement.

"There was a lot of very juvenile stuff," she said. "And there was this triskele, which is sort of sophisticated, a neo-Nazi thing."