When children began showing up at the Newark Board of Education last November pleading for help, many of us were heartbroken.

Child after child came up to the podium to describe what it felt like to be called the n-word and “monkey” inside of their classrooms at the Newark School of Global Studies High School. What was worse is they said their pleadings to the school’s administrators and district leadership for help went unheard. Emails show that the district, even the superintendent, knew about the allegations long before the children showed up in November.

So they had to share their wounds in public before anyone would do anything. Only then did the district launch an impartial investigation, engaging race relations and educational expert CREED Strategies, led by Newark City Hall’s former chief education officer Dr. Lauren Wells, to interview students, teachers, parents, and administrators.

Dr. Wells looked at data about race — who is in the school, who gets into the school and how they perform while they are there. The report was completed a few months ago and offers us a treasure trove of information about what went wrong and what could be better, not just at this school but at many others.

If only we could all read it.

But we can’t because the superintendent has decided that the dozens of pages of findings are none of our business. He said they are meant to serve as “an internal document for us to consider.” But that “us,” ain’t all of US.

Never mind that as taxpayers and community members, we deserve to see what is in this report. Not even the students, their families, the teachers at Global Studies — none of them have been able to see the report either.

Why? What is the district so afraid of us seeing?

Already, the Global Studies debacle has led to multiple pieces of litigation. From school board ethics charges for four board members who were so alarmed they showed up at the school the following week to help, to legal claims by two Global Studies teachers who said they suffered “severe emotional problems” from racial harassment at the school that led them to seek “psychological counseling.”

So now here we go again: Tens of thousands of dollars of legal fees will be paid to lawyers because something went so badly wrong at one school. Don’t we want to learn from that so we don’t keep making the same mistakes?

Every major Newark media organization has requested a copy of the report and has been rebuffed. Even school board members were initially denied access when they demanded to see it, with the superintendent saying it is “in draft. It is deliberative, advisory, consultative.” They were finally allowed to read it a few weeks ago under the supervision of a district staff member as if they were children.

We fought for local control for nearly 25 years because we believed that we are more trustworthy than the state. What does it say that our locally controlled administration doesn’t trust and respect the community enough to share a report about incidents — not just one, but many — that impacted children and families so deeply?

It is past time for the superintendent to own up to the results of this investigation, and make them public for the community to see.