Newsflash: The School Board Race in South Orange-Maplewood is NOT Uncontested
October 31, 2023
Robbinsville High School Senior Creates Student Volunteer Website
November 1, 2023NAACP Is Latest Group to Demand Information on Racist Culture in Newark Public Schools
Last January the Newark Board of Education hired CREED Strategies, a private firm run by Mayor Ras Baraka’s former chief education officer Lauren Wells, to perform a “diagnostic review” of Newark’s Global Studies High School, which has been mired in blatant anti-Black racism for the past year and a half.
Everyone was interested in seeing the results, from students like David Allen, president of Global Studies’ Black Student Union (who transferred to another school after efforts by district administrators failed), to parents who emailed Superintendent Roger Leon repeatedly about racist bullying, to Global Studies teachers who have filed lawsuits, to school board members who had commissioned the report in the first place, to journalists, many of whom (included NJER) filed Open Public Records requests to see the report.
And now, notes Tapinto, the NAACP wants to see the report too.
“The focus as of late has been on the anti-Black racism experienced by students, teachers and staff at Newark’s School of Global Studies,” Leah Owens, the NAACP Newark Branch’s Education Chair. “But it is also important to note that a legal case is pending regarding anti-Black discrimination, bullying and sexual assault that occurred at Oliver Street School NAACP Newark wants the full Global Studies report written by Wells released to the public. Sharing a limited number of the recommendations is not enough. Anti-Black racism occurring in our schools is a public health concern and eradicating it takes honest, open discussion.”
At October 3d’s school board meeting, Leon shared three recommendations from the report that include chestnuts like, “assess how anti-Blackness and other deficit beliefs impact existing school systems and practices and replace them with those that create a culture that is intentionally racially conscious and inclusive.”
As David Allen said at a town hall on racism led by Mayor Baraka, ‘It’s slightly satirical, in a sense, that we’re sitting here talking about Black and brown unity because, truthfully, I’ve never seen or experienced it.”
