Black Parents Workshop President James Davis announced in an open letter on August 10 that the organization would not pursue an extension of its 2020 settlement with the South Orange-Maplewood School District which sought to address the inequitable treatment of Black students.
In response, Board of Education President Will Meyer announced that the work born out of the settlement would continue.
“The end of monitoring is not the end of that work,” wrote Meyer in a statement. “The 2023 Rutgers Equity Audit established recommendations intended to guide SOMSD’s progress over a five-year period, including equitable access to rigorous coursework, stronger student supports, culturally responsive teaching and greater opportunities for every student to thrive. Those recommendations remain an important roadmap for the District and Board, one we are committed to intentionally carrying forward.”
BPW brought the suit against the district in 2019 citing violations of federal and state laws, including the Civil Rights Act. The suit contended that the district had not met the standards stipulated in a resolution between the district and the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights announced in October 2014.
At the time of the original settlement, then-Board of Education President Annemarie Maini wrote, “The board voted unanimously to approve this settlement as it helps us move closer to delivering upon the as yet unrealized promise of the access and equity policy passed in 2015. As was clear over the past few days of board retreats, we all share the commitment to ensuring that all students feel welcomed and receive the supports (academic and social-emotional) that they need to get closer to actualizing our district’s mission statement.”
However, the BPW sought, and the Board of Education approved, a three-year extension of the settlement in 2023, after a presentation by Dr. Edward Fergus outlined continuing stark disparities in achievement, discipline and academic interventions in the school district between white and Black students.
In recent years the district has made progress on a list of 23 recommendations outlined by Fergus in the 2023 Rutgers Equity Audit, through the work of the Board of Education’s Rutgers Implementation Committee. In his statement, Meyer did not indicate whether or not the Rutgers Implementation Committee would continue.
Regarding the end of the settlement, Davis thanked the Board of Education, and noted Fergus’s “patient, unglamorous work of analysis and data collection” that unearthed “findings, and they confirmed what our families had been saying for a generation. Dr. Fergus found a district whose hallways looked like the future of America, but whose classrooms looked like 1950s Mississippi.”
Since 2023, Davis said that the district had made substantial progress that he listed in eight categories: data and transparency, academic tracking, discipline, independent oversight, equity audit, curriculum and Black history, student supports, teacher diversity, and funding.
Davis said that changes came slowly and were at times “reluctant” and “performative”. He also wrote, “While we fought for our children’s right to belong, this community was changing beneath our feet. Black student enrollment in the district has fallen to roughly 22% down from about 54%, but the overall Black population of South Orange-Maplewood has not dropped at such a significant rate. That means Black families that choose to call the SOMA community home, do not have faith [in] the dubious legacy of the school district and are sending their kids to private school in greater numbers year after year.”
Read Davis’s full open letter below.
In response to Davis’s letter, Board of Education President Will Meyer wrote:
The conclusion of court-supervised monitoring under the settlement between the Black Parents Workshop and the South Orange-Maplewood School District marks an important moment for our District and community. Significant credit is due to BPW and the families who have brought their experiences and advocacy to this work, as well as the many educators, administrators, and community members who have worked for years toward more equitable outcomes for our students.
The end of monitoring is not the end of that work. The 2023 Rutgers Equity Audit established recommendations intended to guide SOMSD’s progress over a five-year period, including equitable access to rigorous coursework, stronger student supports, culturally responsive teaching and greater opportunities for every student to thrive. Those recommendations remain an important roadmap for the District and Board, one we are committed to intentionally carrying forward.
The 2023 Fergus report recommendations were described as preparing SOMSD toward being “integration ready.” That path forward was toward schools where children learn with and from classmates of different backgrounds and experiences, where every student is fully welcomed, supported, challenged, and confident in their place in our classrooms. To be sure, this is an important foundation, but our continued focus is needed to ensure that all students have the sense of belonging to be successful in each of our schools.
As formal monitoring concludes, the responsibility for carrying this work forward rests even more clearly with the District, the Board and our community. We welcome that responsibility with confidence in how far our schools have come and clear eyes about the critical work still ahead.
