Categories: Newark

Newark Students “Occupy” Cami Anderson’s Office

At this moment a small group of Newark Public School students have been “occupying” the district’s central office on Cedar Street since about 8:30 last night.  Blue Jersey says they were aided by several adults, including Mayor Ras Baraka’s Chief of Staff, who happens to be his brother Middy. (Welcome to Newark.) The students, according to Bob Braun ( not the most reliable narrator) are protesting Superintendent Cami Anderson’s reappointment.

According to the students’ live twitter feed, they are also protesting local school closings, charter school expansion (despite 10,000 children and their parents clamoring for more spots), Newark’s new universal school enrollment plan, and a lack of pizza.

(Some confusion there: the twitter feed says the students haven’t received food, but Braun says that “pizzas later arrived, delivered by none other than assistant superintendent Roger Leon, often thought to be the next superintendent if  Anderson can ever be pried loose from her hold on the $300,000 job.”)

I don’t mean to be snide. These young people have a cause they believe in and they have chosen action over what must appear to be ineffective verbal protests. To some in their community, they’re heroes, including Ras Baraka and his staff, the school board, and the Badass Teachers Association, all of whom are tweeting their support. The students are simply modeling behavior urged by adults like Braun, who railed furiously against Newark Teachers Union for “betraying the boycott movement,” by showing up for their jobs when school opened in September, and lambasted NJEA for focusing its annual convention on professional development instead of politics. (Steve Wollmer, spokesman for the union, replied that Braun was either “misinformed or deliberately misleading.”)

We’ll keep you posted.

Laura Waters

Recent Posts

BREAKING: Statement from JerseyCAN on State’s Long-Delayed Release of Student Test Results

This is a statement by Paula White, Executive Director of JerseyCAN, on the New Jersey…

2 years ago

NJEA: Murphy’s Elimination of Teacher Performance Test Is a Major Win for Students and Educators

This is a press release. Earlier today, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill to eliminate…

2 years ago

Murphy Signs Bill Eliminating EdTPA Test for Teacher Certification

Today Gov. Phil Murphy signed Senate Bill 896, which prohibits the New Jersey Department of…

2 years ago

LILLEY: Blue States Had More School Closures and More Learning Loss — Just Like NJ under Gov. Murphy

The 74 conducted a study of the relative learning loss in Democratic (Blue) and Republican (Red) states and…

2 years ago

One of Newark Superintendent’s New High Schools Tolerates Racism Against Black Students

In October 2020 Newark Superintendent Roger Leon announced with great fanfare the opening of district’s…

2 years ago