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The Sequoia Union High School District will be teaching students and training staff about antisemitism as part of a $325,000 settlement in a lawsuit that alleged the district discriminated against Jewish students.
The suit was filed in November 2024 by the families of six students from Woodside and Menlo-Atherton high schools. The lawsuit alleged that the district and its staff created a hostile environment for Jewish students as antisemitism began to rise with the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Besides paying the families of the students $325,000, the settlement agreement makes it mandatory for every administrator, teacher, coach and staff member to complete an annual antisemitism training course and prohibits teachers from using supplemental curriculum about the Israel-Palestine conflict without clearance from an independent agency. Starting this fall, world history students also will be taught about the history of antisemitism and what it looks like today.
The district also agreed to implement a new process to review and respond to complaints involving antisemitic actions and will have an independent agency oversee its compliance with these agreements through June 2029.
“We are committed to providing all students with a safe, supportive and inclusive learning environment free from discrimination, harassment and bullying, and we have zero tolerance for antisemitism, or any form of discrimination, harassment, intimidation or bullying,” said Superintendent Crystal Leach in a district press release.
Omer Beck, a former Woodside student, said the settlement feels like “justice for all students who were experiencing discrimination within the district.” He told The Almanac that it was common to hear students casually make remarks about each other’s nationalities, race and ethnicity.
Beck shared that he was kicked out of the school’s Freedom Club during his junior year — a club that was advertised as a space to learn about Palestinian culture, something he was interested in. During the first meeting, he said he found the club to be welcoming and light-hearted, but the second meeting was the complete opposite.
“The teacher, who was running the club, was lecturing about the political aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which was a very dramatic change,” Beck said.
While he believed the video fairly explained the international conflict, Beck said he was surprised to hear the teacher make his own claims that “Jewish people were terrorists and ethnic cleansers.” Beck spoke up to share that he didn’t think these claims were true and was later told that his opinions weren’t valued.
At the next meeting, Beck was accused of collecting evidence on other students while he was working on college applications. He said he was kicked out of the classroom and told not to come back.
“After I was kicked out, it was made very clear that Jewish students were no longer welcome in that classroom, and it was very disturbing. It felt like a blast from the past,” Beck said.
Omer’s father, Etai Beck, said that while discrimination is not new for the Jewish community, it was shocking to see that antisemitism still exists in modern times.
“We came here in 2008 to a very open global community that felt very safe and now all of a sudden it feels like we need to hide again,” Etai Beck said. “We can’t wear some of our signs. We don’t want people to know who we are.”
As a parent, he said he is happy with the settlement agreements and the district’s actions to implement real policies about curriculum and the review of complaints.
“There are a lot of teeth to this new arrangement, and I really hope that this becomes a story for all school districts throughout the entire country to understand that there are consequences for not keeping your students safe,” Etai Beck said. “It happens to us as part of the Jewish community today and it can happen to any other community in the future.”
