RIALTO >> Rialto Unified made international news in May when news broke that the district’s roughly 2,000 eighth-graders had been given an in-class assignment that required them to argue whether or not the Holocaust occurred, using pages printed out from a Holocaust denial website as one of three “credible sources.”

Despite the district’s initial assertions that no students had denied the Holocaust occurred, copies of the essays obtained from the district showed that dozens had.

The district suffered widespread condemnation, employees received death threats and Rialto Unified is now engaged in a long-term effort to undo the damage done.

The six candidates seeking the two open seats on the school board are thus vying to step into a white-hot spotlight of international attention.

“I think the district might have dragged its feet at first, but no one could have imagined it’d be a worldwide topic,” said Edgar Montes, the lone incumbent seeking re-election this year. “My only regret is that I wish I’d spoken out sooner.”

Montes said he was “too cautious” initially, waiting for the board to make a unified statement days after the news broke.

Candidate Don Olinger says the board failed in their response to the news of the assignment:

“I think the board was blindsided by the national attention,” he said. “What you do then is flounder, and that causes more doubt and heartache.”

Candidate Lillie D. Houston’s husband was posted with the Army to Germany following World War II and visited the sites of concentration camps in Europe.

“He was devastated when he heard about (the assignment),” she said. “This was a fact. (The assignment) should never have happened.”

The district’s lack of transparency in the wake of the assignment frustrates some of the candidates.

If it were up to district officials, Teddy Harris said, they’d “sweep it under the rug.”

Olinger said he would have demanded the district come clean from the start:

“I would have gone to the superintendent: ‘What in the world is going on here? We’re going to be in the worldwide news. It’s extremely important that we be transparent.’”

The six candidates said they’re mostly pleased with how the district is handling things now:

“I think the district is doing a good job now, with a changeover on the legal team,” Montes said. “It’s going to be an ongoing process, making sure it never happens again. … It’s an ongoing commitment.”

Eighth-graders’ trip this year to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles “should be part of the regular curriculum,” Houston said.

“The Holocaust thing was a tremendous setback,” for the district, said candidate Russel Silva. “For as much backpedaling as they’re having to do, they’re doing fair” at fixing the damage.

“I do believe they’re doing what they know how to do,” Walker said. “I do believe the district is working on” making sure similar problems never happening again.

“Students need to understand that this happened and is no joke,” she said.

Historians estimate 6 million Jews — about two of every three in Europe — were killed by the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945, after they were imprisoned along with other “undesirables,” including Communists, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), Socialists and others