The following is a statement from The Black Parents Workshop following the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education meeting on October 30, 2025, in which board members discussed potential changes to the Intentional Integration Initiative (referred to as Triple I).
From Symbolic Integration to Systemic Equity: Defining the Next Chapter of the Triple I
The Black Parents Workshop (BPW) recognizes and commends the district leadership and staff, including [Assistant Superintendent] Dr. [Kevin] Gilbert and [Superintendent] Mr. [Jason] Bing, for their diligent implementation of the Fergus recommendations and their attempts to address the significant operational challenges of the Intentional Integration Initiative (Triple I).
The BPW also recognizes that the district must have the operational flexibility to adjust strategies as needed to meet the long-term goals of the BPW settlement. For avoidance of doubt, BPW did not recommend nor endorse the Triple I and we are always open to alternative ideas regarding how to efficiently integrate our schools. We agree that the end is what’s most important, not the means, and we support exploring other sustainable models that facilitate the integration goal without unduly burdening the students and parents of this community based solely on the 5% variance. The decision to decide to utilize the 5% variance was not based on law, school policy or the BPW settlement with the school district. It is an arbitrary number that was not even recommended by the owner of the algorithm. While there are many that have argued for the 5% variance to remain in place, those reasons never include empirical analysis that discusses how our children will benefit academically.
Our District as a Model: Integrating Education and Equity
What many parents of our community may not know, is that our district’s approach to integration actually stands as a crucial model for the state, especially when contrasted with the structural issues at the heart of the ongoing statewide segregation case, Latino Action Network, et al. v. State of New Jersey, which was filed in May 2018, 3 months after BPW filed its lawsuit against the South Orange Maplewood School District.
The statewide lawsuit seeks to address deep-seated, structural segregation caused by the New Jersey residency statute, which ties school attendance to municipal lines, entrenching racial and socioeconomic separation. The plaintiffs in that case seek remedies primarily focused on the “front door,” by achieving physical integration across district boundaries through major, often mandatory, systemic changes like merging adjacent school districts, or implementing interdistrict Magnet Schools and expanding Voluntary Interdistrict School Choice programs.
However, the legal environment is challenging, as mandatory assignments based on race are vulnerable to being struck down by U.S. Supreme Court precedent. The most legally plausible solutions in the statewide case involve using race-neutral means to achieve race-conscious objectives, such as using academic interest or socioeconomic status (SES) in voluntary programs – which is exactly what is already happening in SOMA.
Our district is actually in the process of attempting to do what no other school district has done. Tackle two really tough issues that have plagued not only our community, but also our country for decades: educational segregation and the achievement gap.
- Educational Segregation: Our intentional integration model utilizes race-neutral means by basing student placement on SES factors, specifically household income and parent education level, derived from US Census ACS data. Race is explicitly not included in our placement algorithm. This intentional race-neutral approach makes our integration efforts legally robust and aligns with the most defensible remedies proposed in the statewide integration discussions – regardless of the variance number is utilized. Unfortunately, this current model was not set up for success with the required transportation infrastructure that it requires, which has resulted in adverse impact to many students and families in our community for a number of years.
- Achievement Gap: While the statewide case struggles to get students through the segregated “front door,” our district is also focusing on the more important “second door” the classroom. We are actively implementing the Fergus recommendations to address instructional and academic inequities that can still exist within integrated schools if not addressed directly and intentionally.
By prioritizing the implementation of curriculum reforms and robust academic support systems (the Fergus recommendations), we ensure that integration efforts merely supplement the primary goal of improving educational outcomes for not just Black students, but all students in the school district. We are modeling how intentional integration can be achieved ethically and legally by using SES metrics, while simultaneously transforming the quality of the educational experience for all students, regardless of placement. This commitment to going against the grain in the current national environment by refusing to retreat on equity issues showcases true leadership by the school district and the community at large.
We believe that the SOMA two-prong approach is unique, novel and a beacon of light not only for the parties in the current statewide integration lawsuit, but for the nation as a whole during a time when it is needed most.
