MARBLEHEAD — The School Committee passed a resolution against the Massachusetts Teachers Association’s (MTA’s) antisemitic teaching materials Thursday night in a vote of 3-2. The two votes against this resolution came from committee members Brian Ota and Al Williams, while Chair Jenn Schaeffner, Vice Chair Alison Taylor and committee member Sarah Fox all voted in favor.
The resolution states that the MTA has “disseminated resources related to the Israel-Gaza conflict and its history that contain unambiguous antisemitic elements.” Further, it states that “these particular materials impact the Jewish community and are offensive and undermine a balanced and fair presentation of this international issue.”
One community member brought photos and examples of these resources to Thursday’s meeting. One image showed a dollar bill folded up into a Star of David, and the information typed above that image claimed that the United States has given more monetary aid to Israelis than Americans. The second photo provided was an artistic, political cartoon with the words “Unity in Confronting Zionism,” and the third was an illustration which very simply states: “Zionists F—Off” and “Free Palestine.”
“I think everyone in this room can agree that these images are not only horrendous, but antisemitic, and should never be exposed to students, yet these are part of curriculum resources the MTA developed,” she said. “There are currently discriminatory lessons and resources for teachers to use on the MTA website. Educators are supposed to protect students, not harm them. Without this resolution, a teacher may unknowingly use MTA resources that will cause irreparable harm to students and open the district to more scrutiny and lawsuits.”
Marblehead Education Association (MEA) co-presidents Sally Shevory and Jonathan Heller also spoke during public comment. Shevory said the MEA has already publicly denounced these MTA resources, and “Marblehead has never even considered adopting this curriculum, nor would we.” Heller had concerns that “once again, the Committee is stepping into an area that is clearly the responsibility of the superintendent and the Office of Teaching and Learning.”
“The proposed proclamation feels reactive and politically charged,” Heller said. “To be clear: On Dec. 9, 2023, the MTA board approved the development of resources related to the history and current events in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The School Committee made no proclamation at that time… By mid-March (2025), those resources deemed to be antisemitic were removed from the MTA website, and again, there was no action from the School Committee.
“So why now? Why mid-May? It is difficult to not see this as politically motivated, especially with two School Committee seats up for election. This feels less about students and education and more about optics and distraction.”
Schaeffner said that this resolution from the Public Schools of Brookline School Committee was sent to her last week. “I read through it,” she said, “and I felt that this was something I would like to bring to this committee for consideration, and that’s the genesis of how we got here.”
As Schaeffner went through her presentation, she pointed out that non-MTA members cannot access the portion of the website which showed the anitsemitic materials, “so the public cannot see a lot of this information.” An audience member heckled to ask how she was able to see it then, to which Schaeffner replied that the materials were provided to her. Schaeffner further said that there is no way for her or the School Committee to verify that these resources have been removed from the MTA’s website.
“The accusation’s that maybe we’re late to the game? Maybe we are. But I just feel it’s important to bring this forward, which allows us to actually reaffirm the statement that the MEA made and that we stand together with the MEA and that these lessons that have been widely disseminated don’t belong in our public schools,” Schaeffner said.
Ota said he didn’t “see the need for this proclamation whatsoever because we trust the superintendent and the assistant superintendent to make sure that our teachers are teaching correctly.”
“The concerns around inappropriate curriculum topics are already addressed… in our instructional materials policy. It’s also part of federal law, and there are plenty of examples of inappropriate curriculum suggestions available to teachers online,” Williams said. “However, I trust our Marblehead teachers and that they know our policies and have the wherewithal to figure out what is inappropriate.”
While Williams and Ota are against antisemitism, they verbalized that the resolution was unnecessary, which is why they voted against it.
Assistant Superintendent Julia Ferreira added that utilizing any form of discriminatory material in the Marblehead Public Schools curriculum is “not going to happen on my watch.”
