“Town meetings are essential to the fabric of our nation; the American Revolution was spurred in part by the king limiting the number of town meetings people in the colonies could hold,” sponsors of the legislation wrote in testimony to the Joint Committee on Education. 

The commission issued preliminary recommendations for K-12 education ahead of the start of the school year, and Cataldo said the state is "seeing a ton of change already."

“What I say to my friends who ask, ‘What can I do?’ is that you can go to a menorah lighting,” Cataldo said. “And put a menorah in the window to show that we are still here.”

“I was surprised and a little bit relieved and also heartened by how much political support the preliminary recommendations received immediately,” a Democratic state representative, who is Jewish, told JNS.

To underscore its concern for prompt action, the commission in August adopted recommendations to curb antisemitism in K-12 schools after releasing a preliminary version of its report. Cataldo said that action already has resulted in improvements across the state.

The legislation would require districts to adopt literacy curriculums backed by scientific research, focusing on kindergarten through third grade.

When it comes to teaching students how to read - the basic building block of all education - schools aren’t getting the job done themselves.

And that means someone has to step up and take charge.

“It’s not OK,” Rep. Simon Cataldo, sponsor of the bill told Contrarian Boston. “It’s something that needs to be changed right away.”

"Students, we heard again and again, would actually report an incident of virulent antisemitism. They'd often be gaslit," Cataldo said. "It would be minimized.”