We need to make sure that no one pulls a stunt like this again.
The school board didn’t tell Newark families about a rule that the superintendent would be automatically rehired for five more years at an annual salary of about $290,000, if they didn’t give him notice last May.
They didn’t put it on the public agenda back when they wrote this into his contract in 2019, and it was approved without public comment. But Thursday night, they had a chance to open the discussion, to simply delay this move for a few months while parents and civic groups were given the chance to weigh in. And they decided not to. That’s deeply disappointing, in a district where parents have plenty to be concerned about: Only 13 percent of students can do math on grade level and just 27 percent can read on grade level; in some schools, more than half the kids are chronically absent. Yet there was no public discussion about the progress since schools chief Roger León was hired, as education advocates and parents like Newark mother Jasmine Morrison have called for, or how many years he should be renewed for. Newark families and civic leaders were left to find out about this from the newspaper. Board member Crystal Williams, who was elected last year, was the only brave soul who stood up and tried to make that right. “The voice of the community is paramount,” she said at Thursday’s board meeting, as she introduced a motion to reassess León’s contract. “Let’s take their concerns seriously and do this the right way; there’s no reason to go around it.” Nobody backed her up and seconded the motion, so it died on the spot. And while Morrison and two other Newark parents who head nonprofits wrote a letter to Phil Murphy’s education commissioner, Angelica Allen-McMillan, asking her to investigate and “bring much-needed public transparency and accountability to this issue,” as of Friday they’d gotten no response. We didn’t either. Meanwhile, Superintendent León was asked on PBS last week whether he’d reopen his contract so the public can have a say, and he danced around the question. Only after being repeatedly pressed by interviewer David Cruz did León make clear that his answer is no: This was “something that was voted on by the board 4 years ago,” he said. The deal may still face legal challenges, but regardless, we need to make sure that no one pulls a stunt like this again. The chair of the Senate Education Committee, Vin Gopal, says the public should get notice before superintendent contracts are renewed and that we should look at a state requirement. “There should be a process for all 600 plus school districts to make sure there is public notification for contract changes,” the senator told us. The other core problem is that so few people turn out for school board elections. Only 3 percent of the people in Newark voted in last year’s board election. Shennell McCloud of Project Ready, which works to increase turnout, urged the people of Newark to show up and vote in the next school board election on April 25th, so there is accountability and “Black and brown communities are not left vulnerable.” “Our voice is not being heard and valued during school board meetings when it comes to the matters of appointments and reappointments,” she said. And it’s disappointing that Mayor Ras Baraka didn’t respond to our inquiries about this. Given how much he dominates city politics, it’s striking that at such a moment, he’s reacting with complete silence. This is a district that often refuses to answer basic questions, and citizens and journalists have filed a pile of public records requests because they have no choice. That lack of transparency is concerning. “This contract renewal happened 8 months ago, and we’re finding out about it eight months later,” McCloud said. “One has to wonder, if this is happening in the background, what else is happening in the background?” Newark families haven’t had this power to control their own school district for 25 years, because it was controlled by the state until just two years ago. Now it’s time for them to make full use of that power and elect a board that will at least hear them out.
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