On Sunday, Sept. 7, several Newton parents received an email from a source titled “Newton Needs Change.” The subject line read: “Newton teachers union announces- Kids Don’t Come First !”
Contrarian Boston, a Substack blog, reported a secondhand quote by Newton Teachers Association (NTA) President Mike Zilles from his speech at the district’s convocation, saying that students should be “in the mix” but not put first.
Zilles confirmed that the quote was true but missing context. He told The Heights that in his speech, he had been encouraging teachers to schedule their lunch breaks before scheduling those of their students.
“The implication is, if you say the students come first, then we come second, and I don’t want teachers to think about themselves that way,” Zilles said.
The following day, Enrique Rosero, a Newton resident and Newton Public Schools (NPS) parent, sat in front of the Newton School Committee, urging a strong stance against what he believed to be harmful and false information.
“I received a mass email from an anonymous account pushing a dubious narrative seeking, yet again, to discredit our teachers and their union,” Rosero said. “Local groups in social media are filled with miserable provocateurs, hiding in anonymity. They have been peddling harmful, anti-union, fake news.”
Rosero’s public comment was just one voice in a flurry of discussion and social media posts among Newton parents and voters, from frustration at Zilles’ comment to anger about how some say it was spun in the media.
“When I saw [the Contrarian article], I was appalled—I found it extremely upsetting,” Newton resident and former NPS parent Jane Frantz said. “I use this word carefully, but I felt angry, and I don’t usually respond that way, and in part, because I knew this man had taken Mike Zilles’ words out of context.”
Ryan Normandin, NTA’s second release officer, said that the article spun the quote to support an anti-union narrative.
“The moment you have any context, you understand that Mike Zilles has told educators to take a lunch break, and a right-wing publication managed to somehow spin that into ‘We hate kids,’” Normandin said. “That’s a crazy, crazy leap, and on its face, it’s ridiculous. And I think that voters and community members are able to see that.”
Some parents, though, found the comment worrying. Lital Asher-Dotan, an NPS parent who filed a lawsuit against the NTA during its 11-day strike in 2024, said even within its original context, the message that students should not come first was concerning.
“I think it is telling, and unfortunately, we’ve seen this type of behavior that shows that students are not necessarily the number one priorities of unions around here in the past few years,” Asher-Dotan said.
Asher-Dotan cited the strike as a source of residual tension among parents and the union.
“I think we can move on from a potentially unfortunate saying and maybe something that was taken out of context,” Asher-Dotan said. “I think it became an issue only because there is a very broad frustration in the Newton community around the teacher union.”
The article also quoted two school committee candidates, Ben Schlesinger of Ward 5 and Jonathan Greene of Ward 6. Normandin said he was disappointed to see those candidates’ words appear in an article he found misleading.
“There were two candidates, Jonathan Greene and Ben Schlesinger, who both responded to and commented on the Contrarian’s piece, and did it in a way that seemed to lend credence to the claims of the Contrarian,” Normandin said. “We were really disappointed in that because it’s well-known that it’s hyperbolic.”
In the article, Contrarian Boston quoted Greene saying, “The school committee’s fundamental responsibilities are reflecting what parents and voters want for their kids’ education and contract negotiations with the NTA. As I understand what Mike said, he illustrated [that] the priorities for our students and the union don’t always perfectly align.”
Greene did not respond to an email request for comment. In a statement to The Heights, Schlesinger confirmed his quote to Contrarian Boston, but said that he was only asked about the importance of independence in the race, not Zilles’ comment.
“I was asked, ‘What importance do you place on being an independent candidate for the School Committee?’” Schlesinger wrote in an email to The Heights. “I replied with the quote that appeared in the piece – ‘It’s essential that every Newtonian knows that every School Committee member is putting the students first without any conflict or allegiance.’ I declined, and will continue to decline, to address comments that I only heard about secondhand.”
Looking ahead to the Nov. 4 school committee race, NPS parent Molly Ristuccia said she fears the direction of public discourse regarding teachers and the union, given the discussion she’s seen around Contrarian Boston‘s article.
“That article is going for the jugular and trying to paint people in a certain way or not hear the full context of a story,” Ristuccia said. “It sort of mirrors, to me, the way politics are being done at the national level, which I have a distaste for.”
Unlike Rosero, Ristuccia said she isn’t looking for any condemnation of the article from Newton elected officials. Instead, she said parents should lead by example.
“We can look to each other and remember what our values are and what kind of community we want our kids to be in,” Ristuccia said. “We don’t need to be told what to do. I think we all know what the right thing is.”
