Parents outraged at school’s silent tribute for Gaza victims
This moment of silence caused a lot of noise.
Students at the elite Beacon School were asked to pause from their studies last week to pay tribute to the victims of violence in Gaza , where some 60 Palestinians were killed the day before by Israeli soldiers.
The school-wide announcement Tuesday stunned some students and has outraged parents who question why the school is entering into the divisive Palestinian-Israeli conflict with what they see as an anti-Jewish bent.
“I am extremely upset because I did not send my child to a New York City public school to pray for Hamas operatives,” said one father, who is Jewish.
“I just don’t think any school should be promoting a moment of silence for terrorists. What if it was Islamic terrorists in ISIS?” said one student’s mother, who is Jewish. “No school would be having that over the loudspeaker.”
The Zionist Organization of America, a pro-Israel group, said it would send a letter to the Beacon School demanding an apology.
“It is disgraceful to mourn the death of Hamas terrorists,” said Morton Klein, the organization’s president.
The highly selective Hells Kitchen school tends to lean left. Students, some with the permission of their teachers, walked out of school in November 2016 to protest Donald Trump’s election.
Beacon principal Ruth Lacey did not return request for comment about whether she sanctioned the Gaza announcement, which was made by a student.
Students said such silent tributes at the school were rare. They did pause for the victims of the Parkland High School massacre, but that moment of silence took place during a school walkout against gun violence in March, students said.
“As a Jewish student, I could see a lot of my Jewish friends get very weird when the moment of silence started,” Sophie Steinberg, a junior from Brooklyn, said about Tuesday’s tribute.
“I wish there was that conversation afterwards,” said Fortune Ndombo, a junior from Manhattan. “There was no follow-up.”
Some parents say they’ve reached out to the principal, who has been unresponsive.
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It is totally inappropriate for any NYS teacher to take a position politically in the classroom.
Can Employees Express Political Views in Public Schools?
By Martha Mccarthy, Ph.D.
It is well established that public educators have a First Amendment right to participate in the political process outside school, including campaigning for candidates and running for office as long as such activities do not interfere with their job performance or present a conflict of interests. Yet, when educators’ political activities move inside the classroom, the employees’ expression rights may no longer prevail. Several recent controversies have focused on teachers making political comments or promoting political candidates in public schools. Although in the 1970s some courts upheld teachers’ First Amendment right to wear armbands in silent protest of the Vietnam War, the judiciary more recently has not been receptive to employees’ claims that they have a constitutional right to make political statements to students. The general legal principle is that public school personnel cannot proselytize the captive student audience.
I agree, and I'll go even further by saying that it's totally inappropriate for administrators, teachers and other school personnel to voice their political or religious/non-religious positions anywhere on public school property or anywhere else when they are supervising public school students.
Thank you for the link - it reminded me of several "educators" I personally know who broke those laws and got away with it.
As a retired teacher, nothing bothers me more than when administration or teacher abuses their position and uses the classroom as their bully pulpit. We are supposed to be teaching critical thinking and which is a totally different thing than teaching a specific ideology.
I fully agree. After I semi-retired and then fully retired, I spent many years as an active public school substitute. In addition, my wife and I were very involved in our children's school activities via PTA, etc. During those decades, we saw quite a number of "subliminal" classroom abuses.
Where did I say that? I told you what policy was. If teachers don't follow policy then they should be disciplined.
There was only 2 teachers in my kids school who shared their political POV, 1 liberal and 1 conservative.. I was not pleased, and made that known. It stopped.
Since I'm one of a handful of NT members who is required to lock seeds if I'm going to be absent for more than 6 hours, this is another of my seeds that needs to be locked.
Teachers/Administrators have no business trying to influence their students either direction of the political spectrum, though I do recall in school, most of the teachers were more left than right and they did find ways to communicate their beliefs in 'Election Discussions'.
I agree. I'm going out on a limb here, because I don't know this particular school's set-up, but from what I know of schools (and I've been in many), the PA system/microphone is located in the main office. When a student wants to make an announcement, it has to meet the approval of the principal, assistant principal, or at least a secretary. Since this student was able to make a public announcement, that means that somebody in the office gave approval.
The principal still hasn't publicly spoken about why the student was allowed to call for a moment of silence to honor a terrorist group.