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Thursday, February 19, 2015

NJ students refuse to end sit-in protest at superintendent's office | Al Jazeera America #‎OccupyNPS‬ ‪#‎OurNewark‬

Newark Student Union Stages Sit-in | Al Jazeera America:





EDUCATION
JULIO CORTEX / AP PHOTO

NJ students refuse to end sit-in protest at superintendent's office

The young activists want Newark's schools chief to meet with them or resign over a program they say is racially biased

As their sit-in at the office of their schools superintendent went into its third day, student activists in Newark, N.J. are firm in their demands that the superintendent should either speak with them about a controversial new program or resign.
The eight protesters, members of the Newark Student Union (NSU), say they will not leave until Superintendent Cami Anderson meets with them to discuss her One Newark program, which was implemented in September 2014, two and a half years after she was appointed by the state to run Newark’s struggling schools. 
One Newark requires the city's students, from kindergarten through high school, to reapply for acceptance at 100 different Newark schools, including some charter schools and non-traditional public schools. An algorithm decides which schools the students will attend.
Anderson says that the program will increase schooling options for students. The student activists say that the program forces them to attend schools in inconvenient locations and devalues the rights of black and Latino classmates.
The protestors say they will remain in the offices until Anderson agrees to meet with them and attend a meeting of the Newark Public Schools Advisory Board, a parent group. Short of that, they’d like to see her resign.
“The only way we will leave this occupation is if she attends the advisory board meeting or she meets with us, or both. We most likely want both,” said Thais Marques, a community organizer with New Jersey Communities United (NJCU), a local non-profit group that aims to empower low- and middle-income people.
Two members of NJCU have joined the protesters to assist them in their action.
The protesters say that the program puts a heavy burden on disadvantaged black and Latino households that do not have the means to commute to schools far from where they live. They also say the program prevents them them from attending predominantly white schools.
“We definitely find this to be a racial issue,” Marques said. “Newark is one of the most segregated cities in the country, and the One Newark plan only exacerbates this kind of segregation.”
“The algorithm that Cami Anderson uses only separates black and brown students and puts them in worse schools Newark Student Union Stages Sit-in | Al Jazeera America: