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Email Megan Email Shayla Browse & Buy: Announcements Apartments & Rentals Automotive Employment Farmer's Market Financial Legals Merchandise for Sale Real Estate for Sale Recreational Call A Pro Page 1 Call A Pro Page 2 MARKETPLACE The Clean Team SUBSCRIBER CENTER Contact the Ledger Dispatch Subscribe Today COMMUNITY LINKS California Highway Patrol Traffic Info Page City of Jackson Jackson Police Department City of Amador Amador County Chamber of Commerce Amador Superior Court City of Plymouth Amador County Caltrans Road Conditions HomeTown Radio City of Ione Amador County Sheriff City of Sutter Creek CLICK GALLERIES April Click Submissions Click - March 25, 2008 Click - March 18, 2008 Click - March 11, 2008 Click — February 19, 2008 Photos Courtesy of John Shepherd More Click Galleries E-mail this article to a friend | Printer friendly format Family charges gross mishandling of hate crimes at Amador High Friday, June 05, 2009 By Scott Thomas Anderson Jason Zysman's grandparents survivied the holocaust. Growing up in Amador County with his Jewish mother, he developed a strong sense of himself, as well as great pride in being an alumnus of Amador High School. Now Zysman says his pride is gone because of the school's handling of anti-Semitic vandalism, verbal harassment and physical assaults that his son, Justin, recently suffered on its campus for two years. School officials don't deny the general harassment and admit that at least one hate act was committed, but say they worked hard to address the issues and protect Justin. Jason feels that both the school and the Amador County Unified School District failed his son on every level. The first incident occurred at the start of Justin's freshman year in 2007, when the words "Burn Jew, burn" were carved into his football locker. Jason and his wife, Molly, claim it took the school an entire year to remove the words from the locker. "Molly and I found out about it three weeks after it happened," Jason said. "I immediately went to the school's principal, Allan Van Velzen, and he informed me that the words would be taken off. After several weeks we checked and discovered the words were still there. We approached Van Velzen at Back to School Night and asked why it hadn't been taken care of. He seemed surprised that it hadn't. He said that he would take care of it." The Zysmans waited another couple of weeks, but nothing was done. "It wasn't removed until Molly finally sat down in his office and made it a point that it had to be. That was a full year later," Jason said. Van Velzen agrees that what was written on Justin's locker was hateful, inexcusable and deeply concerning. He also admits that "a misunderstanding" on the part of school staff caused the words to remain on the locker for "a long period of time." However, Van Velzen doesn't remember a conversation with the Zysmans on Back to School Night about the vandalism. His position is that he fixed the locker as soon as he realized it had not been fixed the first time. "Originally, my understanding was that the problem was taken care of when it happened," Van Velzen told the Ledger Dispatch. "It was supposed to have been painted over right away. What I remember is that Jason later approached me and told me the words were still on the locker, at which point I took the custodian with me and personally watched him remove it." Asked how the misunderstanding occurred, Van Velzen speculated that confusion may have arisen within the maintenance staff. He also pointed out that the football locker was not in a high traffic area where teachers or staff would have easily noticed it. Van Velzen showed the Ledger Dispatch photos of a number of swastikas and anti-Semitic remarks that had been spray-painted around the Amador campus in the last year, which he pointed out his staff immediately removed according to policy. Van Velzen doesn't believe the graffiti in the photos was necessarily directed at Justin, but acknowledged that seeing it around campus was an issue that he took very seriously. "We have to provide a safe learning environment for all students here," Van Velzen said. "This type of stuff can never be tolerated." But the Zysman family believes it was tolerated. "There is no excuse for what happened. These hateful, threatening words shouldn't have been left on my son's locker for more than a day, let alone an entire year," Molly said. Molly is equally upset by two incidents in which Justin's P.E. clothes were urinated on in his locker. During the first incident, Justin claims his P.E. coach, Scott Hunkins, handed him a plastic garbage bag and told him to clean the mess up himself. Molly, who works at Sutter Amador Hospital, said forcing her son to clean up the mess was not only wrong, but potentially hazardous. "They didn't even offer him gloves," she exclaimed. "He is a teenager without bio-hazard training or knowledge of how to handle that without risking his own health." After the first urination incident, then-vice principal Gary Pogue bought Justin new P.E. clothes. When Justin's clothes were urinated on a second time, Hunkins was the interim vice principal. The Zysmans assert that Hunkins refused to replace the second pair of clothes and was generally insensitive about the treatment Justin had been receiving. The Ledger Dispatch was informed via the school district that Hunkins declined to comment. Van Velzen stated that he had no knowledge of Justin's clothes being urinated on until the Zysmans made a formal complaint to the school district. He described it as "a serious charge." Justin said that in the two years he was a student at Amador High, a group of 10 boys displayed the Hitler salute to him on campus on a daily basis and repeatedly yelled jokes and remarks about "Jews burning." Van Velzen agreed that Justin was severely harassed in his sophomore year. Van Velzen did expel a student for "extremely malicious" behavior toward Justin. He also suspended another student for punching Justin in the face. Van Velzen said neither case appeared on the surface to be motivated by anti-Semitism. "The first time I heard about anti-Jewish remarks being shouted at Justin was during a meeting with Jason Zysman," Van Velzen said. "I assured him I would investigate the matter but he didn't give me any specific names of students who were engaging in that behavior. For much of Justin's sophomore year, he would come talk to me about issues he was having at school, including harassing; but he never mentioned the anti-Semitic remarks or gave me names to investigate." Jason said that Van Velzen never called him to follow up on the issue. "There was never an attempt to have a real investigation into any of the hate-related issues," Jason said. Disgusted, the Zysmans filed a complaint with the school district over the football locker incident. They were informed by school officials that no action would be taken because the complaint had not been filed within 20 days of the incident occurring. "We didn't even find out about it until three weeks after it happened," Molly said. "And then we were assured by Amador coaches, two vice principals and Van Velzen that it would get taken care of. So why would we take our complaint to the district within 20 days?" "There's no statute of limitation on hate crimes," Jason added. Amador School Superintendent Dick Glock said part of the reason the district wasn't acting on the Zysmans' complaint was because there was a six-month time limit on discrimination charges. He also said, "Mr. Van Velzen has insisted to me that he has systematically addressed each of the Zysmans' complaints." Justin has recently been removed from Amador High School. Van Velzen said that if Justin were brought back to Amador, his staff would work to make a safe environment for him. "In order for us to bring him back, they would have to make an effort to figure out who wrote that on his locker," Jason said. "And they would have to take some ownership of their mistakes, provide some diversity training in the curriculum and start holding kids accountable to the code of conduct they preach." Scott Thomas Anderson COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE Hate Crime My name is Danica and I am 9 yeras old. I am Jewish and live in Calaveras County. My Mom and I just read this article and I feel very bad that this happened to Justin. I hope that Justin will read my comment. I have many Jewish friends and I am proud to be Jewish. Any person that would do the awful things to Justin or any other Jew are very bad and mean people. The parents of these kids who did and said these bad things are also to blame. People should not hate other people for their religion or anything else. - Danica (6/5/2009 7:21:39 PM) Budget Cuts Should Cut This Principal If it was a perfect world, the laid offs due to budget cuts would cuts those persons not able to do the job they are paid to do. This school principal has been too long in the system. Avoiding doing his job seems to be the norm for him. - J. Wallace (6/5/2009 4:49:33 PM) Privitization would help The administrators are not responsive to the parents (the customers) because they are too far removed from accountability due to the socialist structure of the school system. If education were privatized, the administrator would be more responsive to the parent, or else the parent would choose another school. Instead, the gov't has stripped us of our right to free choice when it comes to the education of our children, and we are forced to frustratingly comply with the political and bureaucratic nature of "The System". End the governments grip and monopoly of education and open it up to free choice. - Mike (6/5/2009 4:39:32 PM) Amador High My heart goes out to the Zysman Family. I understand exactly what they have been dealing with and our family supports them 100%. The Mr. Van Velsen does not follow up on incidents when reported and does not properly notify parents of their legal right to file a formal complaint. Neither does his staff. Complaints ARE NOT investigated by Mr. Van Velsen or Mr. Glock properly thus, our children suffer. Justin is a wonderful boy and should never had to have suffered through this. I am disgusted by this article. All the children at Amador know what Justin has been through. They are to afraid to speak up. They are afraid of retaliation.... Not just by staff but by other students as well as the parents of the students. Time for this community to step up and look at the real issues going on with the District and not judge or assume. Support our children. - Shelley Scott (6/5/2009 4:38:14 PM) Amador High Unbelievable. What Next? First medical discrimination and mismanagement now this? Our community needs to support these children. The Administration at Amador and the School District need to be held accountable for not taking these issues seriously. Justin and Lyndsay have my support. - Sandy W. (6/5/2009 4:25:56 PM) Hate Crimes On Justin The sad truth is, Jews will always be picked on. We need to learn to take matter's into our own hands and NOT leave it up to someone else. Justin's mother should have called the police, demanded every single day for something to be done..No one deserves this kind of treatment but leaving it up to the school to handle it was treating it lightly.Period! We live in Calaveras County as well, Jewish as well, and I'd be damned if I would allow some school or school punks to make my kids feel unsafe and not proud of who they are!! Being Jewish is a GIFT from God and for that reason alone we walk with our heads held up high no matter what other's say or do!! - Gena (6/5/2009 3:47:07 PM) Justin What is really sad is that Justin is a wonderful young man. I loved talking to him at the football games. He had a lot of team spirit and school spirit that he brought to the school and to the game. I am a parent of a child at Amador High and I believe these are serious issues that need to be taken care of. Bullies can inflict emotional torture that can last a lifetime. No one deserves to be treated the way Justin has been treated the last two years! - Dianne Bennett (6/5/2009 2:49:09 PM) Justin/AHS/Hate Crime How sad is this? In the year of 2009. My heart goes out to the Zysman family. THE TRUTH WILL ALWAYS RISE! - Denise Stoddard (6/5/2009 1:58:40 PM) Hate Crime As an ACHS alumni, and parent of alumni daughters, the non-action of ACUSD management disgusts me. Their gobbledygook excuses for why the slur wasn’t immediately removed are pathetic. The maintenance person who was charged with removing it, and the supervisor, who should have checked to ensure the job was quickly completed, should be fired, and the principal officially reprimanded. An apropos quote comes to mind that the principal should have used: “You get what you inspect, not what you expect.” Most adults with a little common sense and good judgment would have understood the visceral emotions and potential negative consequences this specific type of racial slur elicits. Not the principal! The comment that the locker was “not located in a high traffic area where teachers or staff would have easily noticed it,” is weak and pathetic. I bet plenty of students noticed! Wonder what they thought of the graffiti? Wonder if they felt uncomfortable, demeaned, or afraid? Wonder what the Pop Warner teams and coaches who used that locker room thought or felt about the writing? It’s obvious that the principal has his priorities in the wrong order, doesn’t have control of his staff, the respect of his students, or the management skills to effectively, in his words, “provide a safe learning environment.” Saying that he didn’t know about the urination incidents until reported on by Mr. Zysman says volumes about his communications (or lack of) with acting Vice Principal Hunkins. I wonder what , if anything, constitutes a “reportable offense” at ACHS between staff? The 10 punks who displayed the Hitler salutes and repeatedly yelled jokes and remarks about "Jews burning" are probably well known to a majority of the students, who, if they felt safe, would most likely have reported the acts to school staff by now. The principal, if he chose to, could probably easily determine who the culprits are, but probably has a good excuse for not following through on that either! Maybe we’ll find out in a year! Mr. Van Velzen’s comment that the first time he heard about anti-Jewish remarks being shouted at Justin was during a meeting with Mr. Zysman may be true, but the comments "I assured him I would investigate the matter but he didn't give me any specific names of students who were engaging in that behavior” are incorrect. Mr. Zysman indicated that the individuals were part of a “shop group,” and before Mr. Zysman could declare the specific names of those involved, the Principal cut him off with a comment: “I can only deal with one problem at a time.” I have a question for the Principal. How long will it be before the graphic 3 foot long phallic symbol painted on the gym wall over two weeks ago is removed? A year? - Ed Evans (LT USN Ret) (6/5/2009 1:26:42 PM) Hate Crime on Justin I had a son that was picked on in public school because he was ADD. He was spit on, made fun of by the teacher and entire class, pushed into traffic, called nasty names, forced into punishment that could be viewed by other students, had his lunch stomped on, had his head dunked in the toilet and his clarinet kicked around on the blacktop. The Mt. Diablo Unified School District did nothing either! After he told me one morning "I just want to die", I hired an attorney, pulled him out of public school and home schooled him from age 10 thru graduation from high school. He attended college classes at the age of 15 and is now a soldier with the United States Army to be stationed in Korea. I realized I loved that boy with all my heart and soul, but no one else cared as much, so I took matters into my own hands and with the strength and guidance from God, pointed him in a positive direction. I'll pray for Justin's success as well. - Kim Clevenger (6/5/2009 12:16:19 PM) Amador High typical for amador high, ione high - laura (6/5/2009 12:14:08 PM) SEND US YOUR COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE * - Required fields Subject: * Message: * Contact Name: * Contact URL: Contact Email: * Write the text from image below to this textbox HOME | NEWS | SPORTS | LIFE | OPINION SPECIAL SECTION | SUBSCRIBER CENTER | BULLETIN | PHOTOS OUR PRIVACY POLICY Powered By: