At 2 Conflicting SFUSD Trainings, Dueling Ideas of What Antisemitism Means

At the heart of the split between two separate workshops meant to train San Francisco high school teachers on how to combat antisemitism this week was the definition of antisemitism itself — namely, whether anti-Zionism falls under the umbrella.

Dozens of educators refused to attend a Wednesday training that the San Francisco Unified School District called mandatory, which was led by a pro-Israel group. Instead, they opted for an alternative workshop from an anti-racist education institute.

“It sounds like the training they received compared to the alternate training that the rest of us received was very polar opposite,” said Marloes Sijstermans, a math teacher at Galileo Academy of Science & Technology who attended the alternative training.

Educators had raised concerns weeks ago about the American Jewish Committee — the organization that the district chose to host antisemitism training at Galileo Academy as well as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Balboa high schools — citing its longstanding support for Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. The initial training, set for September, was called off and rescheduled.

Though the district maintained that the workshop would not focus or take a position on the Israel-Hamas war, some teachers and administrators worried that the AJC could not provide unbiased training against that context.

With support from their union, a group of teachers organized an alternative workshop to be held at the same time and led by PARCEO, an education justice institute, with support from the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace.

PARCEO and AJC declined to release their training materials, but educators who attended each workshop shared notes and photos of the presentations with KQED.

At Galileo, 33 people — about one-third of the school’s staff members — attended PARCEO’s training, according to Sijstermans. Half of all staff, Sijstermans said, didn’t attend either workshop.

Multiple educators said PARCEO’s workshop focused on preparing them to discuss antisemitism with their students. Ian Williams, a special education teacher at Balboa, said he felt it was a better use of his time than other professional development sessions mandated by the district.

“Because of the topic, it was one of the best [professional development opportunities] I’ve ever been to,” Williams said. “That speaks to political passion versus the pedagogy that we normally get.”

However, not all attendees at the PARCEO workshop were satisfied with the training.

Henry Machtay, a media arts teacher at Galileo, said he felt the training focused too much on “disengaging Zionism and Judaism” rather than antisemitism itself. In hindsight, he said he would have preferred to attend neither.

“There are negatives about both organizations, and my choice was really a statement about the paternalistic attitude of San Francisco Unified School District — the way they have foisted these professional developments on us one after another after another without any input from teachers,” Machtay said.

Over at George Washington High School, teacher Julia David said the AJC training saw about half of all staff in attendance. She said the main focus was the history of antisemitism globally and the complex identity of Jewish people.

“Israel did come up because it’s a large part of our identity,” David said, adding that the presentation did not delve into the geopolitical aspect of the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The day before the scheduled training, Galileo principal De Trice Rodgers reminded staff to attend the AJC workshop in an email obtained by KQED. Other schools received similar emails from their principals, Sijstermans said.

“We expect teachers to attend this professional development opportunity, and any other type of presentation taking place is not District-approved professional development and you are not authorized to attend during your working hours and while on the school site,” the email reads.

The teachers’ union, United Educators of San Francisco, said it would support any educator who skipped the mandatory training in favor of PARCEO’s, according to a union email sent to educators at George Washington High School.

In a statement, the district said it could not comment on the PARCEO training because it was not district-sponsored or vetted.

“Our focus is on how to provide our diverse student population a safe and supportive learning environment without advocating for any one stance on an issue,” the district said.

Officials also chose not to comment on the status of possible disciplinary actions, stating that they were confidential.

“Teachers were willing to come up to me and address their own biases that they’re confronting, and I think that’s the point of this workshop,” David said.