Middletown Board of Ed Under Fire for Handling of Antisemitic Graffiti, Lack of Communication

MIDDLETOWN — Parents and teachers criticized the city public schools at a Board of Education meeting on Tuesday for the way that the administration has addressed antisemitic graffiti at the middle school and high school, and for its handling of Middle School Principal Raymond Byron, who was placed on temporary leave for an undisclosed matter. At the end of February, school administrators discovered that one of the bathrooms at Beman Middle School was repeatedly vandalized with swastikas. In a Feb. 29 letter to the community, Superintendent Alberto Vazquez Matos said that the district was working with the Middletown Police Department to investigate the incidents.  “Let me be clear: there is no place for hate, intolerance, or discrimination of any kind in the Middletown Public Schools,” Vazquez Matos assured parents and teachers. Two days later, without explanation, the district announced that Byron had been placed on leave indefinitely. The following week, students staged a walkout in protest of the district’s treatment of Byron, who has since returned from leave.  Fumikeshi Okunbi, a parent, criticized the district’s lack of communication on Byron’s leave and subsequent return. She said that she’d heard about Byron being placed on leave through the news stations, but...