As a Belchertown resident, I was proud to read about the implementation of the Anti-Defamation League’s No Place for Hate program at Jabish Brook Middle School [“Change for a school’s climate,” Gazette, May 16]. The school reacted to the shocking incidents last year of bullying of Jewish students by other students using the Nazi salute and taunts that they would go to the gas chamber, by teaching all students and faculty how to respond to bigotry and microaggression — reaching students to explore their concerns about body shaming, racism, homophobia, and treatment of neuroatypical children.

Compare this to what happened in Amherst Middle School, where allegations of discrimination by staff of LGBTQ students led to six months of recrimination and blame, the resignation of the school superintendent and a Title IX investigation. There must have been at least 100 articles, letters, and 0p-eds about the situation in the Gazette; the Belchertown story led to a mere two articles. Of course, the situation in Amherst involved staff, and the Belchertown situation involved students, and the bullying of the scale that went on in Belchertown must have been witnessed, and ignored by staff whom I’m sure benefited from the No Place for Hate program.

Perhaps Amherst, with its high concentration of academics and intellectuals, could learn from its far less known and less newsworthy neighbor to the east.

David Gottsegen

Belchertown