Note to readers: The author reports that this letter has been sent to the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education and Frank McGehee, Mayor of Maplewood. The author has asked the BOE to address this issue at the upcoming June 28 Board meeting.
Dear Village Green:
It’s a beautiful day in SOMA, the sun is shining, kids are celebrating their last day of school and the summer plans that lay ahead of them and I’m not okay. We lost Moussa Fofana on June 6, a beloved student, friend, brother, son and so much more to so many who knew him. While I appreciate the respect the South Orange Maplewood School District has paid to Moussa’s life and to his family, they have yet to hold themselves accountable for delivering the most fundamental right of all students and members of this community — the safety of our children on school property.
The Underhill Sports Complex has been plagued with ongoing safety concerns and the South Orange Maplewood School district has neglected to develop policies to ensure that our children are safe while on school grounds. During the May 17 Board of Education meeting, it was shared that our students don’t feel safe attending events at Underhill as spectators. There are countless stories of female athletes feeling uncomfortable during practice, students using the bathroom facilities only to find people camped out there, ongoing concerns of recreational drug use on the property and this is just to name a few. If the district has been made aware of these safety concerns, why haven’t they been addressed with a sense of urgency?
Our children and our families should never have to weigh whether or not to attend practice, meet their friends for a pick-up game or attend an event at Underhill, afraid that in doing so, they will put their own lives at risk. We need an action plan from our Board of Education and we need justice for Moussa, if we had prioritized the safety of Underhill and our students — would Moussa still be alive today? Would we have been able to provide answers around what happened that dreadful night to Moussa’s family, friends and this community? We cannot stay silent anymore, we cannot accept inaction from our Board of Education, we cannot allow this senseless act that took Moussa away from all of us to be in vain. With summer upon us, we need to do the work now and finally address questions of security at Underhill and afford each and every student the basic right to safety on school grounds. We cannot accept mediocracy, our children and Moussa deserve more.
With love,
Kaitlin Wittleder
Maplewood, NJ
