At the beginning of 2019, Roosevelt High School published an issue of their newspaper which had a racially charged cartoon on the cover. The image was of a black man wearing a beanie and baggy clothes handing a package labeled ‘cure’ to a white man dressed in a suit and tie. The headline read “The Struggles of a Life with Addiction”. The cartoon spread quickly around the school and area due to its racist message. The paper happened to be published only a few days before the student led Black Lives Matter at School rally. The teachers involved in the rally planned to up the training of institutional racism and black history in the district. The principal of Roosevelt released a statement apologizing for the image and committing to working with staff and students to learn from the incident. (Information from the Seattle Times)

In early March, a picture went viral of two Mercer Island High School students posing with a Nazi salute. At the time of the picture, the students were off campus. Jewish students and parents were horrified by the picture. The school responded by saying they would be focusing more on cultural awareness in schools and are going to use the incident as a teaching moment. (Information from KomoNews)

Tolo is a traditional high school dance and with school dances come the clever signs students use to ask each other out. A student at Issaquah High School wrote a sign that bore the words “If I was black, I’d be picking cotton, but instead I pick you. Tolo?” Many were furious with the racist proposal. The school responded saying they were horrified by the sign and that it is not what their school stands for. The teenager has also since apologized for her actions. (Information from Kiro7)