BY WALTER ELLIOTT
NEWARK – The Newark Public Schools community may be taking sides and board members considering interim measures, while their Nov. 29 petition to remove a former board president is mulled by the New Jersey Department of Education School Ethics Commission.
That petition, whose details were made public and the board’s Dec. 19 meeting, prompted calls on either side of the dais for an outside attorney – where one of its advocates was nearly ejected from the East Ward Elementary School auditorium.
Superintendent of Schools Roger Leon signed the petition after the board voted 4-3-1 at their Nov. 29 meeting at the Dr. William Horton School. Four approved to petition, four abstained and Dawn Haynes – at the center of the controversy – voted against.
It is not clear whether the petition is calling for unseating Haynes – a six-year member into her third term – on grounds of a conflict of interest. The petition to remove came after Haynes’ daughter had filed a legal claim Oct. 25 against the district and its Newark School of Global Studies magnet high school.
Akela Haynes had claimed that the district and the Global high school administration had not protected from alleged religious, racial and gender discrimination while as a student there. A. Haynes had named Leon and Global Principal Nelson Ruiz as allowing the “physical and psychological harms” she said she had experienced.
A. Haynes, in a Dec. 18 interview with a reporter, said that she had waited until she had transferred from Global in her junior year and later became an NPS graduate before filing her claim. (State law requires a complaint filer to give the public entity being complained on six months to respond.) She said that she had “suffered pervasive and consistent” discrimination, sexual harassment, assault, battery, bullying, cyberbullying, emotional distress and intimidation there. between Sept. 1, 2020 and Dec. 31, 2022.
A. Haynes, in the interview, said that a male peer student had called her a terrorist and “a N_____,” while passing by in a Global hallway and another “destroying my headphones.” She left while she was a National Honor Society student and student government treasurer.
Global Studies high school had been at the center of discrimination claims from some of its students, teachers and patients since 2022. A. Haynes was among a group including Global Studies Black Student Union President David Allen and several other students and teachers who voiced their complaints to Leon and the board Nov. 22, 2022.
NPS’ elders responded by commissioning CREED Strategies consultants on January 2023 to report on Global’s “anti-Blackness” culture. CREED turned in its report later that year, to which Newark’s BOE released three of the report’s recommendations on fostering conversations on racial issues. Leon, since September 2023, has not released the report to the public to date, saying that it was an internal document.
The Newark Teachers Union sued NPS in November 2023 to release the report – but withdrew its two suits Nov. 6, 2024 after an undisclosed agreement with the district. Two former Global English teachers, on June 2023, filed discrimination and retaliation complaints against Global’s administrators with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The federal probe, started on Dec. 21, 2023, continues.
Leon said he would resolve the cited problems at the end of the Nov. 22, 2022 meetings and visited the high school the next day. D. Haynes, who was Board President for the 2022-23 school year, responded by seeking a meeting among Global’s administrators, students and teachers.
The 2022-23 school board, however, passed on an ethics complaint against D. Haynes with the School Ethics Commission by Global Studies Parent Liaison Samantha Heer. Heer claimed that D. Haynes was using her position to “pressure” Heer to set up that meeting and that the authority rests with the NBOE.” The commission’s decision on that complaint has not been publicly posted as of press time.
D. Haynes, at the Dec. 19 meeting, asked the board that they hire an outside attorney instead of Board General Counsel Barbara Liss. The board member raised the question on whether Liss was representing the BOE or the NPS administration.
“The Board has lost so many cases, been misdirected on so many occasions, while we’re paying a lot of money,” said D. Haynes. “There’s no way I can believe that the board attorney we now have has our best interest when I was cross-examined by her for the (news) article that came out this morning – and not to mention the failure of my board colleagues on such a matter that was wrong.”
Liss responded that she represents NPS, “which is governed by the BOE.” She added that board members should call her if they have legal questions and “don’t believe everything you read in the media.”
NAACP-Newark Branch President and activist/board candidate Denise Cole were among those who supported D. Haynes and asked for the release of the CREED report and details of the board’s complaint against her to the state commission. Cole, however, were among the public audience who shouted out their demands for an independent counsel – which caused her to be surrounded by three NPS security guards.
Board President Hasani Council called on NPS Security Department Executive Director Levi A. Holmes, after several minutes of trying to bring the meeting back to order, to “please handle” the outbursting public. Haynes then asked Council to “ask them to step away from” Cole.
D. Haynes, who is a Newark City Hall employee, has two other daughters in the district. Should the state commission permit the board’s proposed ouster, Haynes would be leaving with more than two years’ left on her term, which is scheduled to end in May 2027. State law requires a special election to fill an elected official’s unexpired term if there is more than 12 months left.
It is not known as of press time whether the board will receive the ethics commission’s decision on D. Haynes will be posted in time for their January meetings. They have a Jan. 11 retreat, rescheduled from Jan. 18, at their 765 Broad St. headquarters, a Jan. 21 business meeting there and a Jan. 23 public meeting at the Sir Isaac Newton School, 150 Newton St.
