CURMUDGUCATION: Newark Students Occupy District Offices #OccupyNPS

CURMUDGUCATION: Newark Students Occupy District Offices:



Newark Students Occupy District Offices

Social media is an amazing thing. I've been following events in Newark from the comfort of Pennsylvania. And it has been rather exraordinary.

Newark students have occupied Superintendent Cami Anderson's office. As reported by Bob Braun, who was there with the students during the first night (you could see him in the background on the video feed), the actual occupation was not too tricky. A board meeting was going on upstairs, and the office on the 8th floor was just open and unguarded.

The Newark students are not strangers to this brand of activism. They have previously occupied a board meeting and helped scare Anderson away from an appearance at AEI in New York.

That was Tuesday night. The district, as reported by Braun, was initially confrontational, then switched gears to expressing concern for the students and promised water and access to bathrooms.

By Wednesday, the district appeared to be playing a harder brand of ball. Police reportedly delivered this letter to parents of students in the office, telling them to get their kid the heck out of there.

That didn't happen. Students in the office were told there was pizza for them-- outside in a school bus waiting to take them to school. Much of the day involved tweets, phone calls, and other communications regarding food for the students that district officials insisted was not being held up but which clearly was not getting to the students. (The live streaming from inside the building made this kind of obfuscation hard for the district to pull off.)

Late in the evening, a group of clergy arrived at the building and told security that they were clergy and they were taking the food up to the students. They delivered the food, along with some words of support and encouragement, led some prayers for the students, the building, and the city, and then returned outside to a rally in front of the building where just about every civic leader in Newark was gathered, speaking to the press. The district claims it has been attempting to talk to the students and negotiate, but the students have not said a word that I've seen to indicate they've heard any such overtures. I'm pretty sure the threatening letters and the bus pizza gambit don't CURMUDGUCATION: Newark Students Occupy District Offices: