Julian will go to a neighborhood school–but what about all the other Newark children?
Julian Ferreira will attend the Oliver Street School.
Julian Ferreira will get to go the school behind his house–and his mother Sara deserves a lot of credit for standing up to the administration of Newark public schools run by Christopher Cerf, Gov. Chris Christie’s agent in the state’s largest school district. But there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other children in Newark who will not be allowed to attend the schools nearest their homes. Their struggle goes on.
“I wasn’t going to give up this time,” said Sara Ferreira. She tried and failed last year to enroll Julian in the pre-school at Oliver Street School, a school that abuts the Ferreira family property on Pacific Street.
She tried again this year but was again denied–twice. Sara Ferreira, herself a graduate of he Oliver Street School, wouldn’t stop pushing, however. She reached out to the parent organization, #ParentPower, head by Frankie Adao as well as local and state elected officials. Sara also agreed to tell her story here.
Her willingness to go public brought provoke extensive reaction, including complaints from other parents whose efforts to enroll their children in nearby schools was frustrated by the state’s insistence on pushing the so-called “One Newark” plan. That plan, originally devised by Cerf himself, seeks to close neighborhood public schools and launch new charter schools.
On Friday, one of Cerf’s bureaucrats called Sara Ferreira and said the school had somehow found room for Julian. It has been typical of the state’s reaction to try to resolve small crises before they erupt into larger ones.
Cerf headed a private consulting firm, Global Education Advisers. The firm was paid $500,000 to come up with an enrollment plan for Newark–but Cerf denied ever receiving the money. He was working on the plan when Christie named him state education commissioner. The plan’s general outlines were included in “One Newark” and are followed today.
Cerf named his protégé, Cami Anderson, to be the Newark superintendent. Then Julian will go to a neighborhood school–but what about all the other Newark children? | Bob Braun's Ledger:
