By Walter Elliott
NEWARK – Those who noticed several hundred students walking out of a nearby charter high school to City Hall’s front steps after March 18’s morning rush hour witnessed a familiar, yet unique, sight.
The students left North Star Academy’s Lincoln Park Campus building at 377 Washington St., at about 9 a.m. that Friday and walked a block east to City Hall. They then held a rally for about 90 minutes to air their grievances.
The City Hall steps have been the focal point of five protests by mostly high school students 2010-18. Student participation ranged from 300 to 1,000.
Two were held March 14 and April 20, 2018 as National Schools Walkout Day in the wake of 17 people gunned down in Parkland, Fla.’ Marjorie Stoneman High School. American History High School students, teachers and administrators walked out to defeat a Newark Public Schools’ intended relocation.
The bulk of the five protests was over state education aid cuts and the implementation of then-NPS State District Superintendent Cami Anderson’s controversial One Newark Plan. One Newark included targeting 20 schools for “turnaround,” closing and/or consolidation.
Friday morning’s students, however, were from a high school overseen by the Uncommon Schools charter schools network. Charter school students leaving classes to protest are rare occasions.
There was one protest, before Friday, where a non-Newark public school took part involved the March 14, 2018 national school gun violence walkout. Students from St. Vincent’s Academy – an Archdiocese of Newark parochial high school – joined public colleagues from Arts, Central and Science Park high schools at City Hall.
One has to cross multiple state lines to find charter high school student walkouts or protests 2018-22. Charter highs in Kansas City, Mo., and Miami, for example, joined in the March 14, 2018 national walkout.
Students left their Las Mesa, Calif. CHS an hour before dismissal Jan. 24, 2018 to protest the police department’s handling of an arrest of a student. Sacramento (Calif.) CHS students, on Sept. 9, 2018, similarly protested St. Hope’s Charter administration’s summertime firing of teachers and having to wear long pants on 100-degree days.
The Mast Academy joined other public high schools in walking out and converging at Miami City Hall March 10. The protest was over the Florida Senate’s passing what some have called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
There have been no previous high school walkout or protest reports involving North Star Academy’s Washington Park HS. There are no reports of such occasions among the seven other privately run but publicly funded high schools North Star parent Uncommon Schools has in Boston, New York City and Rochester and Troy N.Y.
LPHS students, student organizers and a former teacher came to City Hall steps to publicly decry what they call North Star’s mistreatment of African or African American teachers and students. The speakers said that North Star has developed “a culture of anti-Blackness” despite Uncommon Schools President Julie Jackson’s seven-point “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Action Plan” she had announced in July 2020.
LPHS senior L. Drummond was among several students who said they have seen a significant number of African American teachers telling their charges that they were leaving for being undervalued and overworked.
“It’s very upsetting for us to build to build bonds with our teachers, to build relationships and connect,” Drummond told a reporter, “and then see them chased out by the school.”
“You deserve Black educators who don’t get pushed out by these systems,” said Tasha Grant, who taught theater at North Star until 2020. “You all deserve to be in classrooms that nurture you and keep you safe.”
“We’re tired and fed up,” said senior Kwadjo Otoo. “No they’re trying to pretend like something changed – but we know it’s the same school we’ve been going to forever.”
Otoo was referring to Jackson’s seven-point DEI plan, which she said in July 2020 was in response to George Floyd’s May 25, 2020 murder and her reading “of negative experiences about our schools.”
It is not clear whether Jackson had visited the “Black at Uncommon” Instagram account and/or Facebook page. The two-year-old account includes stories from former teachers systemwide plus a link to a Change.org “Hold the Uncommon Schools Network Accountable” petition.
Jackson’s plan to all 57 schools in Newark, Camden, NYC, Rochester, Troy and Boston focused on meeting and talking and listening to with teachers, parents and students in-person and during professional development days and on other occasions.
Other points in Jackson’s plan included hiring consultant Promise54 to review Uncommon Schools’ policies and practices, create a parents advisory group and review its Kindergarten-12th Grade curriculum “to ensure it’s culturally responsive and prepares students to be future changemakers.”
LPHS junior and student council member Aubria King was among several students who said that there had been a few in-school improvements since 2020. Those steps include teachers having to read a book on harsh disciplining of African American students.
North Star, they however said, has changed their sending students home to serve their suspension to “on-site learning,” which is spending suspension in a room all day.
“They do provide us with good education and we’re getting into these great schools – but it comes at a cost,” said King. “That cost is our mental health and the way we’re being treated.”
Uncommon Schools and North Star, from opening its first school here in 1997, have had a reputation of rigorous instruction, including Saturday classes, longer school days and years and requiring greater parental involvement.
North Star also has a “No Excuses” discipline policy. A 2019-20 state report on discipline found 19 percent of North Stat students being suspended. The rate was six times higher than in Newark overall and across New Jersey that year.
North Star spokeswoman Barbara Martinez, to King’s mental health point, said that Friday afternoon that it has hired a company that provides student access to counselors.
The charges and criticism may give those who are casually familiar with North Star Newark pause.
Uncommon/North Star enrolls K-12 6,200 to 6,823 students in its 14 Newark and five Camden schools for 2021-22. Many of those students are from Newark or Camden. UC supplied the higher number; the N.J. Department of Education uses the lower figure. (The school network tends to combine Camden and Newark statistics.)
North Star Newark and Camden’s student body makeup in 2019-20 (the latest NJDOE stats) have 83 percent African or African American. and 15 percent Hispanic or Latin American. Of the students, 86 percent are economically disadvantaged, based on reduced or free breakfast and/or lunch applications.
Martinez, on March 18, said that 47 percent of its staff identify themselves as African or African American and 67 percent as “non-white.”
“We believe in and tell our students that their vice matters and we respect their peaceful protest today,” added Martinez. “We look forward to listening and working/ discussing in the coming days to address student concerns.”
Many of the protesting students, however, found themselves locked out on their post-10:30 a.m. return. The purpose-built Lincoln Park Campus building, which also houses the same-name elementary and middle schools- went into lock down after 9:15 a.m.
That lockdown meant that no one could enter or leave the building until their scheduled dismissal times. North Star’s 2020-21 Student and Family Handbook states that students who are not in “structured and supervised activities” are to vacate the building within 15 minutes after their scheduled dismissal time.
