Are Newark’s mayor and the state-appointed school chief cooperating? Well, maybe.
Deseret Segura, 16, comforts her sobbing grandmother, Deseret Richardson, 83, outside the “enrollment center” in Newark last year. The older woman was overcome fear her granddaughter would not be safe traveling from her neighborhood, travel required by “One Newark.”
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka Wednesday held a press conference at which he announced the creation of “enrollment assistance sites” designed to help families register their children for school this fall. The official statement released indicates five sites, one in each ward (locations listed below with the mayor’s statement), would be staffed by “volunteers and staff from the Newark Public Schools.” Unsurprisingly, Newark schools superintendent Christopher Cerf saw the statement as support for the “One Newark” enrollment plan and put out this statement: “I support any initiative that provides parents with information and resources to help them choose a school that works best for their child. Our teams have been in communication about this effort and we believe it will complement the work already underway at the District’s Family Support Center.”
Confusing? Well, yes.
This is the headline in the NJ.COM coverage of the same story: “Baraka says ending One Newark ‘the only answer” to Newark school issues.” The full story can be found at http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2015/08/baraka_says_ending_one_newark_the_only_answer_to_n.html#incart_river
On the one hand, the mayor appears to be criticizing the “One Newark” plan as he had in the past. Still, Cerf is expressing gratitude for the cooperation he is receiving from Baraka in helping “One Newark” work.
It shouldn’t be missed, however, that in the mayor’s statement, the needs of wrongly enrolled special education and other special needs students would be a priority of his “enrollment assistance centers.” This is what the statement says:
“The Enrollment Assistance Sites will support families that have been placed in schools that don’t meet their needs or that cannot provide services to which Are Newark’s mayor and the state-appointed school chief cooperating? Well, maybe. | Bob Braun's Ledger:
