Lower Merion school board delays plan for antisemitism training as discussions about equity issues continue

The Lower Merion school board has delayed presenting a plan for antisemitism training amid concerns about rising antisemitism in the district.

In a Nov. 19 letter to the community, the board said it was “solidifying specific training for our Board, and additional training for LMSD staff and students on the topic of antisemitism.”

“In the coming days, as we have finalized dates and information from our partner organizations, we will share specific steps we are taking to address this issue, no later than Dec. 2, 2024,” the board said in the letter.

At Monday’s meeting, however, board president Kerry Sautner said that an “extended, detailed plan” would be presented at the next board meeting. The board needs to review the plan and discuss it during a public meeting, she said.

“This is a full, entire system’s work,” Sautner said.

On Tuesday, Sautner said the board had been expecting a full presentation from the superintendent at the meeting, “but due to the late hour” — the meeting ran past 11 p.m. — “and lack of community present,” the presentation was delayed. A district spokesperson noted that an in-depth presentation on antisemitism education and training, as well a residency partnership with the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, was planned.

The meeting was dominated by a presentation of the district’s scores on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) and Keystone standardized tests. District officials highlighted a persistent achievement gap for Black students — a topic that has been at the forefront of recent board conversations about the district’s equity policy, and controversy around which groups are protected by it.

While debating a revision to the equity policy in September, one board member, Abby Lerner Rubin, expressed concerns that antisemitism was on the rise and said the policy should focus on “all” students, rather than the “historically marginalized.”

Countering that racism was constant, board member Kimberly Garrison drew a contrast with Jews, who, she said, had “decided to join the group of white people.” Another board member, Anna Shurak, also said that Jews didn’t face the same discrimination as Black people.

The debate sparked backlash, with Jewish community members accusing Garrison of antisemitism and calling for her resignation or censure by the board. Black parents, meanwhile, called Rubin’s comments offensive and said the district had failed to adequately address racism.

Since then, the district has faced pressure to do more to address inequity and condemn antisemitism. A 13-year-old Jewish student at Welsh Valley Middle School who spoke at a November school board meeting said a classmate had told him that “Donald Trump will kill all the Jews” and raised his hand to him in a Nazi salute.

His father, Omer Dekel, a board member of the Jewish Families Association of Lower Merion, told the board the incident revealed the “urgency of institutional education around antisemitism” for the student body, administrators, and teachers.

“We need moral clarity and must unequivocally denounce such events,” Dekel said, while calling upon other Jewish families to speak out about discrimination. (The district’s acting superintendent, Megan Shafer, sent a message to families the next day notifying them of “a serious incident” involving antisemitic remarks directed toward a student at Welsh Valley, and saying that “hate speech of any kind is not tolerated in our schools.”)

During that meeting, Sautner said that the school board would be partnering with the Weitzman Museum for antisemitism training that would be “happening in the new year.” She said the Jewish Community Relations Council would also be involved.

A district spokesperson said at the time that the district was also working with the Weitzman Museum “to develop a residency partnership for fourth and sixth grades about Jewish lives in America.”

Shafer, speaking at Monday’s meeting, mentioned that partnership, saying the district was having “in-depth” conversations with the museum.

In addressing the “rising level of antisemitism we’re seeing in our community and the world at large,” Shafer said, the district has to evaluate its system as a whole — deciding how to define antisemitism, and how its staff should be prepared to intervene.

She said the district was partnering with the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Anti-Defamation League, and “ideally also with the NAACP” to offer training to staff to better respond to hate speech.

Lower Merion is also changing its data-collection system to better track different types of discriminatory incidents reported in its schools, Shafer said.

Shafer — who began her remarks by talking about the achievement gap data presented Monday, and acknowledging the “sense of devastation” about them from some community members — said there was also “bigger-picture work ongoing” around redefining the goals and measures of the district’s equity work.

Some community members expressed confusion about Shafer’s update. “Frankly, I have no idea what was just presented,” Kim Lipetz said, in a comment submitted online and read aloud at the end of the meeting.

“I don’t understand this update on antisemitism,” another parent, Michele Vessal, said in a comment also read aloud. “What are you doing? When is it happening?”

A Black parent, Nigeria James, expressed frustration over the focus on antisemitism training. “We were not met with this level of empathy,” she said, referring to Black families, adding that there was no antiracism programming when her children “were called a monkey here.”

Sautner, responding to the questions about the lack of specifics on antisemitism training, said there “was a much more extensive plan” forthcoming. “We need to engage this in a larger community conversation,” she said.