Sixth- and ninth-grade students will return Thursday to South Orange-Maplewood classrooms that have been deemed safe by the school district and the local teachers union, after a judge on Tuesday declined to force all teachers back for in-person instruction.
“I’m going to deny the temporary restraining order, a blanket order to require everybody back, because there are apparently classrooms that still have issues,” Judge Jodi Lee Alper said in a nearly two-hour online hearing in the Superior Court, Chancery Division.
Alper also declined to rule the move to all-remote instruction by the South Orange-Maplewood Education Association a strike. “Teachers have been working, probably harder than they ever have, so I don’t find it to be either a strike or a work stoppage,” she said.
Essex Chancery Judge Jodi Alper ruling on the case between SOMSD and SOMEA, March 16, 2021
Both parties are scheduled to return to court on April 19 for a hearing to determine whether all teachers can be compelled to return to classrooms, although Alper said she hoped the parties would resolve the issues between themselves before then.
The Village Green has reached out to Superintendent Ronald Taylor, Board of Education President Thair Joshua and SOMEA leadership for comment.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
