State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Announces Second Annual Convening of School Leaders and Educators to Address Rising Antisemitism and Hate

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond today announced that registration is open for the second annual School Leadership to End Hate Winter Institute, co-hosted by the California Department of Education (CDE) and the California Teachers Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education (California Teachers Collaborative).

The second annual School Leadership to End Hate Institute, “School Leadership to End Hate and Inspire Courage,” will take place on March 2, 2026, in Sacramento, and registration for the event opened today, December 17.

This announcement comes amid a continued nationwide rise in antisemitism and hate, which has reverberated in California and includes a recent incident at Branham High School in San Jose where students formed a “human swastika” on a school field and posted it to social media with a 1939 quote from Adolf Hitler.

“The incident at Branham High School is a horrendous act that is appalling on every level. We must all condemn this clear instance of hate speech, which threatens the safety of students and staff alike,” Superintendent Thurmond said. “We must prevent our young people from being co-opted by hate groups, and we must protect our schools as learning environments where students of all backgrounds, including our Jewish students, are safe to learn and thrive.”

Thurmond’s Education to End Hate Initiative represents the State Superintendent’s continued commitment to proactively and directly combat hate in California schools. It includes education initiatives and outreach directly to district superintendents to offer resources in the aftermath of hateful or discriminatory actions such as the incident at Branham High School.

Thurmond first launched the Education to End Hate Initiative to combat bias, bigotry, and racism in September 2020. Since that time, Education to End Hate has expanded to directly address rising antisemitism and all forms of hate. Efforts that are part of the Education to End Hate initiative have included:

• Mini-grants to local educational agencies to support educator training;
• Virtual and in-person classroom events, including survivor testimony; and
• Support of the California Teachers Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education , which has trained more than 5,000 educators since 2023 and provided a curriculum library of resources that have been downloaded over 2,400 times since October 2024.

The California Teachers Collaborative was established by Senate Bill 1277 (Stern) as a network of 15 leading genocide and Holocaust education organizations and survivors who are charged with expanding and improving professional development and standards-aligned curricula on genocide, including the Holocaust, for educators in California public schools.

The California Teachers Collaborative is administered by the Jewish Family and Children’s Services (JFCS) Holocaust Center with funding and oversight from the CDE and the Marin County Office of Education.

In January 2025, Superintendent Thurmond and the CDE partnered with the California Teachers Collaborative to co-host the School Leadership to End Hate Institute, a first-of-its-kind professional learning event to combat hate in schools by training administrators in research-based practices to address and prevent hate and to teach about the Holocaust and genocide. This institute gave administrators access to the kind of high quality, research-based professional learning on Holocaust and genocide education that is typically only available to classroom teachers.

“Educators are often asked to hold difficult history alongside present-day realities, and moments like this can feel especially heavy,” said Morgan Blum Schneider, director of the JFCS Holocaust Center, who leads the work of the California Teachers Collaborative. “We want California teachers and administrators alike to know that they are not alone. The California Teachers Collaborative is a statewide network for our school communities, whether they are addressing an immediate crisis or planning long-term strategies to foster understanding and confront antisemitism and hate.”

This year, the CDE and the California Teachers Collaborative are inviting local educational agencies to send teams of educators, including both administrators and teachers, to the School Leadership to End Hate Institute. Teams are encouraged to apply early, as registration for the first School Leadership to End Hate Institute quickly filled to capacity.

California schools and districts serving grades 6–12 are encouraged to apply through the event page .

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Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100