Philadelphia Parents for Palestine
Ending the Palestinian Nakba in Our Lifetime
Petition: Reinstate Keziah Ridgeway to her Classroom
Letter to Superintendent Tony Watlington
September 27, 2024
Superintendent Watlington,
We feel it is important to summarize what got us here. In January 2024, Keziah Ridgeway, a Lindback award-winning teacher at Northeast High School, gave the students in her African American history class an assignment: Examine a modern-day group of indigenous or oppressed people’s use of art as an act of resistance and connect it to enslaved Black people’s use of spirituals and other forms of resistance art. Two students chose to focus on Palestinian resistance art through a podcast, received an “A” grade for their work, and were selected to showcase it at a Black History Month assembly, after clearing it with the principal, who also reached out to administrators at the School District.
A teacher in attendance at the assembly took issue with and recorded the presentation, which included one of the student’s first and last names as well as images of students in the audience. This information was sent to an outside group, a clear violation of the students’ privacy and federal law. This led to complaints from the outside group, which resulted in the District ordering Ms. Ridgeway to remove the podcast, and ultimately, due to continuous harassment by this outside group, the removal of Ms. Ridgeway from the classroom on September 6, 2024.
Since February, at all of the School Board meetings, parents, teachers, and students have been clear: the District’s decision to censor the video thus violating Northeast students’ First Amendment rights, and the lack of action to hold a teacher responsible for the violation of students’ privacy is unacceptable. Further, students deserve to learn about Palestine without fear and intimidation, and teachers have a responsibility to teach about Palestine in public schools.
Finally, after many months of testimony, School Board member Crystal Cubbage reached out to me during last Thursday’s meeting (9/19/24) asking if my contact information could be shared with the appropriate District personnel. In our testimony that evening, we did not request a meeting. We, Philadelphia Parents for Palestine, included in our remarks our demand for the immediate reinstatement of teacher Keziah Ridgeway.
You emailed me late Sunday night (9/22/24) stating, “Our Chief Equity Officer, Dr. Sabriya Jubilee, and I will be in touch with you tomorrow to schedule a meeting to discuss these concerns.” The following day, Dr. Jubilee reached out to me saying, “As a follow-up, below are some suggested times of availability for you and I to meet.” Dr. Jubilee is not authorized to make personnel decisions for the District, therefore, to offer a meeting with her is in bad faith. As Superintendent, you have the ability to make decisions about Ms. Ridgeway’s employment.
Immediately reinstating Keziah Ridgeway is the right thing to do. Every day that she is not teaching her students, they are falling behind in their AP, IB, and other classwork. As we head into the fourth week of her removal, we have heard that a number of students have dropped out of her classes. Every day more damage is done and the message your decision sends is that outside groups have more of a say in the education of the children of Philadelphia than parents and students in the District have.
Once Keziah Ridgeway is reinstated and teaching all of her classes at Northeast High, we’d be happy to meet with you and Dr. Jubilee to discuss the many other pressing issues facing our students who deserve to learn about Palestine without threats, intimidation, and violations of their rights and privacy.
Sincerely,
Jethro Heiko
And the Philadelphia Parents for Palestine leadership team, all of whom have children in Philadelphia District schools:
Rouz Lami
Meaghan McDonald
May Mohammed
Huda Fakhreddine
Arun Kundnani
Hannah Sassaman
Media Release
RELEASE DATE: Sept 27, 2024
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Jethro Heiko
267-984-3493
PHILLY PARENTS DEMAND REINSTATEMENT OF TEACHER
Parents for Palestine group urges immediate return of Keziah Ridgeway to teaching
Parents for Palestine, a newly formed group of parents with students in the School District of Philadelphia, has called upon the District’s Superintendent, Dr. Tony B. Watlington Sr., to immediately reinstate a teacher wrongfully accused of bias. Keziah Ridgeway, who teaches history and anthropology at Northeast High School, has been “reassigned offsite” while an investigation is conducted into a complaint filed by the Deborah Project, a group with a history of lodging baseless lawsuits against Ethnic Studies and Critical Race Theory programs and Palestinian rights advocates.
Philadelphia Parents for Palestine is particularly concerned about the impact of Keziah Ridgeway’s suspension on students. Every day that she is not teaching at Northeast High, her students are falling behind in their AP, International Baccalaureate and other classwork. A number of students have already dropped out of her classes as the substitutes cannot prepare these students for the AP tests, for example.
This week Philadelphia Parents for Palestine was invited to meet with the School District’s Chief of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Dr. Sabriya Jubilee. In a written response to the Superintendent, a representative of the group wrote: “Dr. Jubilee is not authorized to make personnel decisions for the District, therefore, to offer a meeting with her is in bad faith. As Superintendent, you have the ability to make decisions about Ms. Ridgeway’s employment. Immediately reinstating Keziah Ridgeway is the right thing to do.”
Philadelphia Parents for Palestine is organizing a petition to demonstrate the widespread support for Keziah Ridgeway that exists among parents and the public. The petition can be accessed at https://chng.it/45s669MmpR and will be shared on social media later today, Friday, September 27, 2024. “Keziah’s reinstatement is essential because she has consistently demonstrated a true commitment to our children, particularly to those who may feel lost or in need of guidance,” said Rouz Lami, a parent of three current students and two alum at Northeast High School.
“The School District of Philadelphia has set a dangerous precedent by removing Keziah Ridgeway, an award-winning, Black, Muslim teacher, from the classroom in Northeast High School due to complaints lodged by groups with no direct connection to the students at that school. We are calling on the district to listen to us, the parents of students in schools across the city, and reinstate her, and to not cower to these false claims by outside groups unaffiliated with the school,” said Meaghan McDonald, a parent of a second grader and kindergartener at Sadie Penn Alexander school.
Rouz Lami and Meaghan McDonald are available for interviews.
Background
In February 2024, a video that Keziah Ridgeway’s students made that was to be shown at a Black History Month assembly was censored by School District officials after a complaint was filed accusing the video of antisemitism. The short video, on art as a form of cultural resistance, explored this subject through the examples of the enslavement of Africans and the military occupation of Palestine. But there was no antisemitism. The real concern was that the video was implicitly critical of Israel.
The complaint against the video was made by a group with no relationship to any parents of Philadelphia’s largest and most diverse high school. In acting on it, the School District violated both federal law and the Constitution’s First Amendment. Yet there has been no accountability for these violations.
Since the censorship, dozens of students, teachers and parents have testified at monthly School Board meetings in support of schools being places to talk about current events freely and openly. On May 30, 2024, the District surrounded the public School Board meeting building with security guards and police to intimidate members of the public from entering and participating, leading to multiple formal Sunshine Act of Pennsylvania objections, which have still not been investigated.
Meanwhile, Keziah Ridgeway has been singled out and targeted by pro-Israel groups. Details of her private life have been made public, leading her to understandably fear for her safety. The Deborah Project complaint accuses Ridgeway of posting on social media “threats of violence against members of the Philadelphia Jewish community.” However, Ridgeway has not made any such threats.
Philadelphia Parents for Palestine
The School District of Philadelphia continues to fail our students by not standing up against attacks on public education by groups like Accuracy in Media and the ADL-affiliated Jewish Friends & Family Alliance.
Philadelphia Parents For Palestine responds to the denial of the ongoing Nakba occurring in Palestine and works to end the censorship, doxing, and other forms of intimidation Philadelphia students and teachers have been facing in our schools for learning and teaching about Palestine.
Here, parents and our allies support the courageous efforts of Philadelphia's Educators for Palestine by actively engaging with their schools, testifying at SDP Board of Education meetings, and learning about the ongoing Nakba so that we do not, unlike many of our parents before us, continue to deny the this history of the occupied territories of Palestine, and genocides in Sudan, Congo, Haiti and around the world.
“After testifying multiple times to the Philadelphia Board of Education, it has become clear that those running our educational system, prefer comfort over honesty. That the Board refuses to stand up to outside bullies who deny the tragedy unfolding in Gaza is no way to raise our children in an increasingly complex world that requires courage, honesty, and a commitment to lifelong learning.”
-Jethro Heiko, Founder of Philadelphia Parents for Palestine and father of two Philadelphia high school students
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Petition: Reinstate Keziah Ridgeway to her Classroom
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