Newton North Teachers Respond To Allegations, Harassment

NEWTON, MA — Dozens of staff members streamed out of Newton North High School before the morning bell Thursday in an effort to fight back against what teachers are calling attacks of bullying and hate. Many wore orange and black, the school colors, and some carried signs with messages like "We Stand United" and "Hate has no place here."

"Newton teachers under attack, what do we do?" one history teacher yelled through a bullhorn as the crowd of staffers and supporters chanted, "Stand up fight back."

In August, The Federalist, a web magazine, published an essay titled "Emails Reveal High School Teachers Plotting to Hide their Political Bias from Parents." Author Ilya Feoktistov, executive director of a group called Americans for Peace and Tolerance, showcased teacher emails talking about teaching without bias following Donald Trump's election, saying they showed that the Left is abusing American high school education to gain and retain political power. The piece was subsequently picked up by the Fox & Friends morning show. Shortly afterward, teachers found themselves on the receiving end of threats and bullying, according to the Teachers Union.

"The people of Newton are rightly concerned when they hear some of the allegations, because they're good decent people," teacher John Fitzgerald said. He and others said the emails were lifted out of context and called the claims of abuse baseless and an attempt to squelch free speech.

Teachers and the administration have been grappling with APT accusations of anti-conservative bias and anti-Semitism in the district for years. They have even had to address more muted recent concerns from the ADL. Earlier APT claims have been discounted by Jewish groups and by the state.

“There is substantial reason to believe that the allegations made in the ad are without merit” according to a joint statement issued by the ADL and JCRC of an advertisement campaign in 2013.

But the rally Thursday morning was less about those concerns and more about what teachers characterized as a form of harassment.

Dave Bedar, a history teacher for the past 12 years and one of the people who was directly called out in the Federalist essay, said teachers like himself have been harassed and bullied. He pointed to several petitions, such as one this month accusing the teachers of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism and calling for the firing of teachers including himself.

He pointed to a recent meeting where Jewish community groups including the ADL, JCRC, Israeli-American Congress and CAMERA spoke about what they believe is a problem with the high school's Middle East curriculum. Bedar said teachers were not invited and he criticized the event as one that wasn't meant for good-faith discussion.

Feoktistov told the Patch the meeting was called by umbrella Jewish and Israeli groups in the Boston area - JCRC and IAC. "Like the teachers, I was not invited but free to come," he said.

"Public school teachers are adult government officials whose salaries are paid with taxpayer funds. What you call harassment and bullying, the Framers of our Constitution called 'the right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.' Unlike public school teachers, however, public school students are vulnerable children," said Feoktistov in an email to Patch.

Bedar said the controversy is taking a toll on teachers.

"It feels as though when we should be in there focusing on students, we are dealing with distractions and not getting to do our jobs the way we want to," he said. "We're going to continue to have civil discourse in our classroom and not have outsiders dictate what that looks like."

Bedar said teachers were making an effort not to stand by while outside groups threatened them.

"We will continue to promote the attacking of real anti-Semitism, call out hate groups when they're trying to bully teachers and bully students," he said as the crowd cheered. "We can not allow the inciting of threats to go unchallenged. Bottom line is: We will not let outside groups tell us how to do our jobs."

English teacher Kate Mannelly, one of the organizers of the rally, said she wanted residents to educate themselves about the years-long campaign against the Newton Public Schools, and more recently, Newton North.

"It's the community's values under attack here, and we can rally together to support out town and our students," Mannelly told Patch after the rally. "It's easy in today's age to hear soundbites and not get the full story. Just like we teach our students, we want the community to just get the whole story."

She pointed to the teachers union website as one place to catch up on what teachers have been dealing with.

Although ATP describes itself as critical of Islamist extremism, it has been labeled a hate group by American Muslim and Jewish organizations, which claim that it has targeted the Boston Muslim community through smear campaigns and guilt-by-association tactics. US Attorney for Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz called the group and its claims "incredibly racist and unfair," according to the New York Times.

Charles Jacobs, a conservative pro-Israel activist who has led APT for years, told Newton Patch previously that he is not satisfied with the district's response to his group's accusations of anti-Semitism.

"Fleishman thinks he can distract Newton citizens from the fact that he has had to remove anti-Semitic lesson plans and that the 2 major Jewish organizations in Boston - ADL [Anti Defamation League] and JCRC - protested anti Jewish curriculum by claiming that only I am fighting to remove the biased material. In fact he promised the ADL that he would remove the entire M.E. studies sections until they agreed mutually about materials that were NOT biased," Jacobs wrote in an email.

The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) condemned Jacobs and his organization last December for other unrelated comments.

Teachers said there was a planned hearing near the end of November to address the more recent concerns raised by some of the groups.

Check out part of the rally here:

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Photos by Jenna Fisher/ Patch Staff. Fisher be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).