An Investigation into Racial Slurs at a Newark High School Must Be Made Public

By Oscar S. James II

When children began showing up at the Newark Board of Education in November of last year 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 that 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 about it. 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, administrators. She 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 US.

Nevermind 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 because something went so badly
wrong at one school. Don’t we want to learn from that so that we don’t keep making the same
mistakes?

Every major Newark media organization has requested a copy of the report and 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 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 ourselves 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.

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