Maplewood Black Parents' Group Discusses School Suit Settlement

MAPLEWOOD, NJ — The South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education recently voted unanimously to settle a lawsuit brought in 2018 by the Black Parents Workshop, charging that students of color in the district don't get the same chances to succeed as other students. As a result, the district will pursue new integration efforts, monitored by retired state Supreme Court Justice John Wallace.

The advocacy group held a press conference Friday to announce the settlement and share documents including a report by an expert analyst who found "deep inequities" in the district.

The group shared a report from Dr. Ryan Coughlan (downloadable here), hired during the litigation over the case. (The case is known as Black Parents Workshop, Inc. v. South Orange-Maplewood School District.)

Dr. Coughlan is an Assistant Professor of Education at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, N.Y.

"Dr. Coughlan analyzed publicly available school district data, data from the New Jersey Department of Education, U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) data, and U.S. Census Bureau data to draw a distinct picture of the many challenges facing the South Orange-Maplewood School District and its two sending districts," said a press release. "Dr. Coughlan’s report confirms many of the concerns raised by the Black Parents Workshop over the last six years."

The parent group highlighted these findings in the report:

• Up until the 2006-2007 school year, the district served a higher proportion of Black students than white students. Since that time, the Black student population has declined while the white student population has risen steadily.

•There is an achievement gap between Black and white students in the district.

• 94.6 percent of white students graduate from high school on time, while only 85 percent of Black students do so, and this "must be addressed."

• Currently, only 67.9 percent of Black students are enrolling in college in the fall after their high school graduation.

• While white students make up 52 percent of the district, they only receive 20 percent of the suspensions. Simultaneously, Black students receive 70 percent of suspensions despite only making up 33 percent of the district’s population.

• The mean score on the state third grade Language Arts exam at Tuscan Elementary School, where two thirds of students are white, is 765, while at Seth Boyden Elementary, where about a quarter are white, it's 743.

" These inequities take shape at a young age," notes a release from the organization, "where certain students are classified as 'gifted' and provided specialized services to advance their education. In the South Orange-Maplewood School District, the 'gifted label' is closely tied to race. In 2015, 83 percent of students who were classified as 'gifted' were white even though only 52 percent of the students in the district were white. Simultaneously, only 8 percent of students who were classified as “gifted” were Black even though 33 percent of students in the district were Black."

Dr. Coughlan makes a number of recommendations in his report to achieve equity, including:

• Develop a school assignment plan that maximizes diversity across all schools
• Conduct an in-depth equity and inclusion audit
• Terminate the system of leveling and tracking, and replace it with a detracking system that supports the equitable growth of all students
• Establish courses at all grade levels that specifically uplifts the voices of marginalized groups historically omitted from school curricula

Planning for the future

Robert Tarver, the attorney who filed the suit on behalf of the group, talked with NPR in an interview aired Tuesday. He said that the group hopes to see the new efforts completed in time for the start of the 2021-2022 school year.

New Jersey public television interviewed former Workshop head Walter Fields, who talked about how his daughter, a Maplewood School District alum, was denied the chance in high school to take an advanced math class even though she had the grades. His daughter Jordan just graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and now will become a lawyer.

"It now creates a framework for a partnership," he said, of the settlement.

He also said he wants to see the changes quickly, even among the challenges of coronavirus and distance learning.

In the past, the Black Parents Workshop also has addressed police brutality in the area.

School board comments

The Board of Education released a statement about the settlement.

They wrote, "Through good faith discussions, the parties have reached a settlement that recognizes the strides the district has already made under the leadership of superintendent, Ronald G. Taylor, while incorporating proposals for further improvement offered by BPW. The board also recognizes the efforts of former Interim Superintendent Thomas Ficarra, for his work in facilitating the District’s $160M construction project that was approved by the Board of School Estimate, which will ultimately support the realization of the recently Board approved Intentional Integration Framework. According to Superintendent Taylor, 'We welcome the opportunity to put this litigation behind us and move forward together as a district and community, working to live our creed of service and to truly embody our mission to empower and inspire each student to explore and imagine, to pursue personal passions, and to collectively create a better future.' ”

Other South-Orange Maplewood updates

• Here is what the South-Orange Maplewood schools had to say recently about fall reopening: Click here
• Read more South Orange-Maplewood school news on Patch here.

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