Back in March NJ Education Report chronicled a series of events that spurred the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to open an investigation of Montclair Public Schools regarding the unlawful use of restraints and seclusion for students with disabilities. OCR is also investigating whether Montclair places a disproportionate number of Black boys in the Montclair Achievement Program (MAP), located at Charles H. Bullock School. MAP is supposed to provide a therapeutic environment for students with behavior problems.  

Events rose to a crescendo at last week’s school board meeting when several members of the community recounted instances where they or their children, as Kellia Sweatt, chair of the Montclair chapter of the National Independent Black Parents Association,  put it, were victimized when “Black folks speak up for themselves.” Fourth-grader Summer Brave Bookhart described a teacher refusing to let her go to the nurse and being punished for “taking a knee” during a flag salute, which her mother verified. (The video is here; public comments begin at 2:14.)

Sweatt commented (2:23),

“I mentioned at the last meeting when Black folks speak up for themselves, to protect ourselves who have been victimized, there’s always some pseudo effort to counteract what we do. Are you aware there is an investigation of this entire district from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights about specifically how Black children are being abused in this district? Are you?…The fact of the matter is we’re fed up. I was abused here. My daughter was abused here and I really pray that this investigation uproots what has happened to our children.”

At that point the school board attorney, Lester Taylor, admonished Sweatt for speaking beyond her three-minute allotment, although one board member, Kathryn Weller, agreed that the district was unresponsive to concerns. Another parent accused the board of white supremacy. Then two security guards approached Sweatt to escort her out of the room and a parent shouted, “Don’t touch her!”

Board member Weller made a motion to adjourn the meeting and walked out.

Susan Magaziner, a board certified education advocate and civil rights education consultant, is representing a student, now a fifth-grader, who was, she told NJ Ed Report, “physically attacked and harmed in the corridor of the school building.” 

The student was suspended for a total of eleven days, the cut-off for requiring the district to implement home instruction. Magaziner believes Montclair administrators plan on placing him out of district. Regarding the meeting last week, she told NJ Education Report,

“The District is destroying a young child’s life so as to engage in complicit non-disclosure in protection of the egregious actions [such as] the unlawful restraint and seclusion of minors. This is representative of the school-to-prison- pipeline and the New Jersey State Department of Education is acutely aware and has permitted this criminal activity within Montclair to perpetuate. I hope OCR’s corrective relief will bring justice following the federal probe “

NJ Ed Report has asked the Montclair Public Schools for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.