Last week the Newark Teachers Union (NTU) filed a lawsuit In Superior Court demanding that Newark Public Schools release a report on on anti-Black racism at a district high school, Newark School for Global Studies. The report was written by CREED Strategies, run by Mayor Ras Baraka’s former former chief education officer Lauren Wells and commissioned last January by the city School Board.

Multiple organizations have filed Open Records requests to view the report in its entirety, including the Newark branch of the NAACP, NTU, Chalkbeat, Tapinto, and NJ Education Report. These requests have been denied. While Superintendent Roger Leon shared three recommendations from the report at a board meeting in early October, the public has yet to see the report in full, citing the “a“Advisory, Consultative and Deliberative OPRA exemption.”

From the NTU lawsuit:

“Members of the school community, including Board of Education members and the local chapter of the NAACP, have demanded for the complete report to be made public, where already selected portions have been made public by the District. However, the District refuses to disclose the complete report. This litigation follows.”

Tapinto quotes New Jersey public records attorney CJ Griffin, who explains school board are free to waive the “Advisory” OPRA exemption and says, “it’s very disappointing they aren’t releasing this report. The secrecy undermines the public’s trust, and it makes the jobs of teachers harder. Even if it’s deliberative, and it’s unclear that it is — agencies erroneously use that exemption to hide far too much from the public — that privilege can be waived. The School Board should vote to waive the privilege and release the documents.”

She adds, there is a Common Law Right of Access “and it does not appear they are taking that right seriously.”

NTU President John Abeigon told nj.com, “everything that has to do with education is our domain. We cannot trust the superintendent’s leadership team to know what’s best for teachers and students.”

Local activist Oscar James wrote,

“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?”

In August two teachers at Global Studies filed tort claims, precursors to lawsuits against the district due toto “harassment and racial hostility by students and supervisors.” They both resigned.