Washington Education Association, Seattle Education Association,Portland Association of Teachers sponsor event with seminars - "Teach Palestine" and "Preparing for False Accusations of Antisemitism"

The WEA, SEA and PAT are sponsoring the "Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Annual Conference."

The Washington Education Association, Seattle Education Association and Portland Association of Teachers are sponsoring the annual conference of “Northwest Teaching for Social Justice” being held at Chief Sealth International High School in Seattle, Washington on October 26th.

The afternoon keynote address is “Teach Palestine” which will feature Jesse Hagopian, Samia Shoman, Suzanna Kassouf and Alice Rothchild. Shoman, Kassouf and Rothchild have all previously featured in this substack. Hagopian is an editor at “Rethinking Schools”, a social justice-oriented magazine for educators.

Hagopian has a long history of far-left, or progressive left, activism. In 2006, “Jesse served as the campaign manager for Seattle Black Panther founding captain Aaron Dixon’s Green Party bid for U.S. senate with the message of, “Out of war…and into our communities!”” In 2011, Hagopian was part of a delegation to Israel and the Palestinian territories with Interfaith Peacebuilders (now known as Eyewitness Palestine). Eyewitness Palestine has had some unsavory associations over the years and has expressed support for convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh. 

After a return from the delegation, Hagopian took up with Black4Palestine. 

Hagopian has also written about what he sees as the connection between Israel’s “settler-colonial” policies and the United States. “Rethinking Schools” and the Zinn Education Project republished the article, which calls to “free Palestine and free Palestine Pedagogy.” 

On October 7th 2023, Hagopian posted nothing to his instagram. He was busy on twitter though - justifying the October 7th massacre without even naming the perpetrators. Quite a feat. 

He was back on instagram by October 13th though -

Rethinking Schools has partnered with Teachers 4 Social Justice . These organizations are part of the Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies which is working to include an extremist, illiberal and antisemitic curriculum in schools.

Both the troubling “Teach Palestine” curriculum and the Rothchild-developed toolkit on how to incorporate Palestine in the class and avoid “false accusations of antisemitism” have been covered in this Substack (follow links for previous coverage).

It is deeply troubling that teachers associations would sponsor an event which encourages a one-sided view of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, puts forward falsehoods under the guise of truth and engages in antisemitic tropes.

More concerning still is that as far back as September, Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Chris Reykdal, has been aware of the problematic seminars and workshops involved in this conference. So to have the presidents of the Seattle Education Association and the Washington Education Association.

As shared by stophateinschools.org, public school teachers have addressed their concerns to the presidents of their association and the Superintendent. Still, the event is going ahead on the 26th of October.

Here - a letter to the presidents of Washington and Seattle Education Association

Here - the letter to the Superintendent

This event was advertised to all teachers. Teachers in Oregon are able to count attendance at the conference towards their Professional Development Hours (a requirement to maintain a teaching license). In Washington State, teachers can count attendance at this conference toward their “clock hours” - units of credit given toward professional development which teachers can use to maintain their license or for salary advancement.

Not only is this biased, radical event sponsored by teachers associations but they are offering professional development incentives for teachers to attend. This should be a scandal.