A group of California junior high students were caught forming a swastika with their bodies on school grounds and exchanging racist and violent messages on a group chat, administrators said.

The middle school in Ojai, a small city 80 miles north-west of Los Angeles, told parents in a letter in December that officials had discovered photos showing “nine students laying on the field together to form the shape of a swastika during lunch”. Administrators said the images appeared in a group chat that was active in November and December and featured “racist, sexually inappropriate and threatening commentary”, including one student’s call “to bring knives to school”.

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Antisemitic incidents in the US have recently surged to the highest level in two decades, according to the ADL, which documented 457 cases in K-12 schools in 2017, a 94% increase from the previous year.

The local ADL for Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties responded to five antisemitic incidents in 2016, followed by 19 in 2017 and 21 in the last year, Silverman said. Ventura County is a “hotbed for white supremacists and the ‘alt-right’ movement”, she added.

In the video, a woman who has been identified as Annette Arvizu, a senior technician who has worked for the district for 18 years, is arguing from her car with a group of picketers.

“You’re protesting for nothing,” she says above chants and a blaring whistle. “I’m getting paid! I’m getting paid.”

Trying to exit the lot as the teachers protest, the technician rolls her car window back down and continues engaging with a teacher about money, saying that by striking, “your kids are without teachers.”

“It’s about your money,” she calls out, before smiling and yelling “build the wall! All you guys wouldn’t be here!” as she rolls up her window again.