BY WALTER ELLIOTT
NEWARK – The Newark Public Schools Board of Education is currently operating with two vacant places on its panel – and will until at least April 18’s scheduled school board election.
A’Dorian Murray-Thomas and Asia J. Norton had resigned from the board last autumn when other professional opportunities had opened up. Their departures respectively leave two years and one year left on their four-year terms.
A majority of registered Essex County District 2 voters elected Murray-Thomas as its County Commissioner Nov. 7. Murray-Thomas, who won June 6’s Democratic Party primary unopposed, subsequently resigned to represent Irvington, Maplewood and Newark’s Central and South wards as of Jan. 9.
Murray-Thomas became the youngest elected NPS board member April 24, 2019. She ran then and for her April 19, 2022 re-election while on Mayor Ras Baraka’s “Moving Newark Schools Forward” team.
Norton, who also ran on the “Schools Forward” ticket in 2021, resigned as Board President Sept. 18, 2023. She said that she had been hired to be a clerk for New Jersey State Superior Court-Newark Judge Sheila A. Venable.
State law allows an elected body to appoint an interim panelist for an unexpired term for less than one year within 65 days. An unexpired term of more than one year requires that a special election be held.
The remaining board had unanimously approved Eighth Grade mathematics teacher and Newark for Educational Equity and Diversity Co-Chairman Thomas Luna to fill Norton’s board seat Oct. 26. Luna, who finished fifth among seven April 25 candidates, was among the resumes of 10 appointee candidates that the NPS Central Office received and examined.
Luna’s scheduled Nov. 21 inauguration, however, was canceled.
Neither the board nor NPS directly said why they prevented Luna from swearing in. There had been a New Jersey Department of Education School Ethics Commission review that flagged Luna’s employment as a conflict of interest. The Ethics Commission frowns on any board member being also a school district employee.
Luna has been a teacher since 2012 and a “Grade Level Chairman” since 2016. for the KIPP: Rise Academy – a charter school here.
Charter schools receive 90 percent of tuition of each student who registered with them. That tuition, with 10 percent saved for administrative costs, comes from the sending public school district.
Although charter schools may exist within a public school district, they answer directly to NJDoE’s Charter School Office in Trenton – and not the “home” school district.
Luna, should he have been sworn into the NPS board, would have to recuse himself from voting on any matters involving teachers and/or charter schools.
It is not clear whether any of the other unsuccessful April 25 candidates had sent applications or were also considered to fill Norton’s seat.
Participating registered voters may therefore be facing one more board of education seat to fill April 18 in addition to the usual three. Board Co-Vice Presidents Dawn Haynes and Vereliz Santana’s current terms are to expire July 1, 2024.
The board had meanwhile selected second-term colleague Hasani K. Council to succeed Norton as Board President – and whose School Ethics Commission Personal Disclosure Form responses may be under scrutiny.
A local news website, on Jan. 16, said it had received H. Council’s 2020, 21 and 22 PDFs “from the district.” The linked forms, said the website, show that H. Council had not disclosed that his father – the Rev. Patrick O. Council – was an NPS employee.
P. Council is perhaps best known as the current South Ward Councilman and the ward’s Democratic Committee Chairman. The Union Baptist Church Pastor has been Director of Newark’s Recreation, Cultural Affairs and Senior Services since June 29, 2019.
P. Council has his son Hashini as his South Ward Council Chief of Staff – which is not unusual: Lawrence “Larry” Crump was mother and Councilwoman Mildred Crump’s Chief of Staff before she resigned for health reasons. L. Crump was subsequently appointed and elected at-large councilman. Board member and former board president Josephine Garcia has been and remains Councilman Carlos Gonzalez’s Legislative Aide.
P. Council’s Facebook page, however, lists “Newark Public Schools Coordinator of Athletics” and his LinkedIn page “Coordinator of Scheduling Recreational Activities at NPS” as among his job titles. The news website said that NPS records show that he has been on the district payroll since 2003.
Nancy Deering, acting NPS Communications Director, said to the website that “the conclusions that you have drawn from the documents are incorrect.” Deering also underscored that communication to the individuals in question should go through her department and not directly to them.
It should be noted that NPS and the website, with the Newark Teachers Union, are opposing parties in a public records access lawsuit argument hearing before State Superior Court Judge Myra V. Taratino Jan. 23.
The site intends to obtain a copy of the CREED Strategies finding report on “racial hostility” allegations within the Institute for Global Studies magnet high school. That report has been deemed by Superintendent of Schools Dr. Roger Leon as an “internal” document.
