Mayor-elect Baraka says “cooler heads will prevail” and Cami Anderson will leave Newark
Newark’s mayor-elect, Ras Baraka, said he is still determined to remove state-imposed schools superintendent Cami Anderson—and he believes state Education Commissioner David Hespe will help him do it.
“Ultimately, if she was smart she would just leave on her own,” Baraka said in an interview. “And if she really cared about the city, she would leave on her own. But I think that cooler heads will prevail and we will get together and begin to strategize how we can move the city forward with a new superintendent and a plan that is working for every body.”
Baraka, who takes office July 1, said he has discussed Anderson’s removal with Hespe. The mayor-elect, who ran on a campaign of ousting Anderson and stopping the controversial “One Newark” enrollment plan, said the commissioner has sent investigators into the city schools to review what Anderson is doing.
“They have a team down here reviewing what’s going on in the city —we’re hoping that they will come to the very obvious conclusion that the superintendent is actually an impediment to the growth of the city and not a catalyst for it,” said Baraka, who defeated a pro-Anderson mayoral candidate, Shavar Jeffries, a faculty member at Seton Hall Law School, 54 percent to 46 percent May 13.
The new mayor, on leave as principal of Newark’s Central High School, said he was aware that, in the last few days, Anderson fired a number of school principals. Yesterday, she announced the hiring of eight new principals and also has declared Hawthorne Avenue School a so-called “renew school.”
That would mean its principal, H. Grady James, and the rest of the staff at the school would be let go and have to reapply for their jobs. Just a few days ago, parent Mayor-elect Baraka says “cooler heads will prevail” and Cami Anderson will leave Newark | Bob Braun's Ledger: