State schools chief wants donations to expand anti-hate training

State grants to train teachers to teach students to be tolerant of other races and religions, as well as to people in the LGBTQ community, drew interest from 200 school districts within a week of being announced, said Superintendent of Public instruction Tony Thurmond at a press conference Thursday.

The grants were funded by a $200,000 donation from the S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation.

Thursday Thurmond asked that other foundations donate additional funds to expand the program, so that all school districts that want the professional development can offer it.

“I want to put a call out to other foundations as well, to help us work with those 200 school districts that are saying yeah, I want to be part of the solution at a time when there are those, even in the White House, who would divide us,” Thurmond said.

The grants are part of a “Education to End Hate” initiative launched last month. The initiative includes student and teacher webinars on how to end discrimination and a roundtable with political and social justice leaders on how to create safe learning environment.

“We want to send a strong message that we will not allow our communities to be separated, that we will teach about the impacts of slavery, that we will address that antisemitism is on the rise and that we must address the awful acts of police brutality and racism that we see playing out on our television screens, almost, almost nightly,” Thurmond said. — Diana Lambert