We’ve finally got some news about the mysterious report on anti-Black racism at Newark’s High School of Global Studies. Back in June superintendent Roger Leon insisted the report, created by CREED Strategies which is headed by Mayor Ras Baraka’s former aide Lauren Wells, was private and wouldn’t be released publicly. (NJ Education Report filed Open Public Records requests for a copy of the report, which were denied.) But at last week’s Newark School Board meeting, we got a few hints of CREED’s evaluation of school culture. 

Chalkbeat summarizes CREED’s three recommendation:

• “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.”
• Create and nurture a school culture where “issues of race, culture, and other emotionally charged topics can be discussed openly” and “are integrated into the instruction and learning of the school.” 
• “Commit to culturally responsive-sustaining education transformation” that develops the capacity of all school staff “to identify cultural gaps in their practices and builds the knowledge and skills they need to integrate students’ race, ethnicity, and culture.”

In a call with Chalkbeat Newark, Board co-vice president Dawn Haynes, who removed her daughter from the school after she was “called a terrorist and the “n-word,” said the report “was traumatizing to read. Those students and staff that were affected by the environment at the School of Global Studies show a deeper concern with America as a whole with racism and separation that should never be tolerated in any school.” 

The racial strife at Global Studies has led to this series of events:

• Since last fall parents and students have begged the school board to intervene. Others have emailed Leon as well as Global Studies principal  Nelson Ruiz. When Leon visited the school’s Black Student Union in December, he asked one member if he’d like to have a basketball team. “How fitting, let’s ask the Black students who were called monkeys to do what Black students are always asked to do, play sports, perform,” a parent wrote in the email, which was sent to León, U.S. Senator Cory Booker, and district staff.

• Newark Mayor Ras Baraka held a Town Hall intended to address the tensions between Black and Latino students, 16-year-old David Allen, former president of Global Studies’ Black Student Union (he has transferred to another school), said, “‘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.”
• Two former teachers there, who are both Black, quit due to “harassment and racial hostility by students and supervisors.” They have filed tort claims, precursors to lawsuits. 

In July the district announced it had completed its own investigation of claims of anti-black racism at Global Studies but did not find “sufficient evidence to support a finding of harassment, discrimination, hostile work environment, or retaliatory conduct in violation of district, state, or federal laws.” 

Apparently the district’s conclusions don’t jibe with the experiences of parents, teachers, and students who encounter anti-Black racism at the High School of Global Studies.