WASHINGTON — Montgomery County’s public schools chief said there has been a “surge” in racist vandalism in the county’s public schools in recent weeks.

“This trend is disturbing and unacceptable,” Superintendent Jack Smith said in a statement released Tuesday about incidents of “hate-related vandalism.”

Smith’s statement didn’t mention specific examples of vandalism.

On Monday, Sligo Creek Elementary School sent a letter home to parents confirming that a group of third-graders had discovered racist graffiti in a school bathroom last week. Last Friday, a swastika was discovered on a bathroom wall at Westland Middle School in Bethesda.

Vandalism of school property violates school policy and the law and is “simply wrong,” Smith said in the statement.

The Montgomery County Police Department has joined the school system’s Department of Safety and Security to investigate the acts of vandalism, Smith said, and students “will be disciplined to the fullest extent possible” under school policy.

“Let me be perfectly clear — MCPS respects the right to free speech that is codified in the Student Code of Conduct — but does not and will not tolerate hate-based speech or behavior in our school communities,” Smith said.

The school system educates some 159,000 students and employs some 23,000 staff members.

Outside of the school system, a Silver Spring church’s banner advertising its Spanish-language service was vandalized with the phrase “Trump nation. Whites only.”