“Be mean,” “Black Lives Matter Sucks” and “racism doesn’t exist” were a few of the hurtful comments left in Padlet during a Jan. 20 lower school assembly focused on the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.

The incident began during a project made by Michelle Holmes’s fourth-grade class, when students were invited to share their thoughts about how they could help build and strengthen Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream.

Ms. Holmes felt a lot of concern for her students since they were the ones who made the presentation.

“For me, it was more like someone stepping on my students’ work than anything else,” Ms. Holmes said. 

Ms. Holmes immediately shut down the Padlet and expressed her disappointment toward the students during the assembly. 

In response, Lower School Principal Sylvie Anglin wrote a letter to families explaining what occurred, faculty were given time to process the event during a diversity, equity and inclusion meeting, and grade level assemblies were held. Teachers also had conversations with their students in homerooms, and counselors have made space for students to process the events.

“I don’t think anyone was really shocked or surprised because kids are going to make mistakes,” Ms. Anglin said during an interview. “We just wanted to make sure that we were, even in the moment, taking the opportunity to use that as a learning moment and to really affirm what we value and believe in as a school.”

Since the incident occurred, lower school classes have shown solidarity with Ms. Holmes’s class and reached out to send notes of encouragement and created Jamboards to celebrate their work.

According to Ms. Holmes, her class appreciated the letters and felt empowered.

“The kids that were at the assembly felt very much like, ‘Why are you doing this?’ and then the next day they were very angry,” Ms. Holmes said. “Then all of these letters started coming in, and they were like, ‘Well maybe we did a good thing.’”

According to Ms. Holmes, her class is in the process of making a video that teaches other kids how to respond to a digital activity.

“It’s a little bit late since we are going in person soon, but hopefully, if teachers continue to use Padlet, they’ll use this video to teach their kids about what they should do in a virtual learning experience,” Ms. Holmes said. 

Lab’s youngest students have faced issues surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion before. A memorial on the Midway Plaisance dedicated to Breonna Taylor was defaced in the fall.