In a room full of teachers with books lined against the wall on Tuesday, Nov. 4, the Franciscan Renewal Center and the Phoenix Holocaust Association hosted educators, speakers and scholars to discuss with Arizona educators how to improve Holocaust education in the Valley and state.

There are 40 Jewish congregations in Arizona and the state is home to home to roughly 115,000 Jewish adults. In October 2020, the Arizona State Board of Education began requiring all public schools and charters to teach about the Holocaust and other genocides starting at the seventh grade.

Some teachers took this requirement further.

Ashley Crose, a history teacher at Saguaro High School in Scottsdale, teaches an upper-level class on genocide and the Holocaust. He created a semester-long elective about ge

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