Rialto >> Four months after news first broke of a controversial in-class assignment that asked Rialto Unified’s 2,000 eighth-graders last spring whether the Holocaust actually occurred, district officials unveiled a concrete plan on how to rectify the damage and make sure nothing like it will happen again.

“We’ve prepared them with different units. They’re going to be able to compare and contrast, see similarities,” Jen Harper, the district’s executive director of secondary instruction, said at the second meeting of Rialto Unified’s Cultural Diversity Committee on Thursday night. “And then we’re going to do a variety of essay writing, they’re going to do pictorials, they’re going to work in groups.”

The Holocaust assignment, developed by a small group of English teachers, gave students a trio of printouts from what were described as “credible sources”: About.com, History.com and an Australian Holocaust denial website. Dozens of students ended up declaring the Holocaust to be a hoax, including some who used vehement language to decry Israel.

Students — and teachers — will receive training on how to determine what’s credible on the Internet and what’s not, Harper said.

“Most kids think that if it’s on the Internet it’s credible,” she said. “That’s some of the activities and discussions they’ll be doing in the class.”

Documents released by the district suggest that administrators did not perform the required oversight during the creation of the Holocaust essay project, which Harper said won’t be happening again.

“Now, the vetting process is quite extensive. Now we’re going to have at least 10 pairs of eyes” on future writing prompts, she said.

But there’s another step that the district needs to take, according to committee members: owning up to their mistake to the students.

“There needs to be an admission of error,” said Jerry Fenning, a trustee of Temple Beth Israel in Pomona. “And I’m not seeing it. And that’s tough to do, but that’s critical.”

Jehue Middle School teacher Hillel Schrier agreed.

“We do need to let those students know that a huge mistake was made,” he said. “It builds trust.”

He read from Elie Wiesel’s new introduction to the autobiographical novel “Night,” where he warned in 2006 that already the world was forgetting the Holocaust and that Holocaust denial was on the rise.

“We need to be responsible in our response,” Schrier said.

The Cultural Diversity Committee, made up of district employees, Jewish leaders and community members, first met in July to approve a proposed plan of action by the district to undo the damage done by the spring assignment.

The now ninth-graders will be studying “Night” by Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and Auschwitz concentration camp survivor. Ninth-graders will present their “Night” essays at a December school board meeting. The new lesson plan was developed in cooperation with San Bernardino Valley College.

“If we’re looking for a long-range fix here, we have to look at a broader curriculum” that goes over several years, Carter High history teacher Abraham Mubashshir warned.

That’s the plan, according to administrators.

“The students are going to be followed all the way to graduation. The teachers have gotten a lot of training. The administrators have accepted a lot of blame,” district spokeswoman Syeda Jafri said. “We’re really trying.”

Historians estimate 6 million Jews (about two of every three in Europe) were killed by the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945.

Staff Writer Greg Cappis contributed to this report.