Schools

Hundreds of Newark Students Leave Class to Protest Budget Cuts

Youth rallied during meeting of state budget committee Tuesday

A beautiful spring day is often a siren call for students looking to cut school. But when hundreds of Newark youth marched out of their high school classrooms at noon Tuesday, they did so with a purpose: to protest proposed cuts to the school district’s nearly $1 billion budget.

“The Newark student voice is constantly muted,” said Tajzah Wilson, a representative of the Newark Student Union, which organized the protest. “We have to speak up if we want to prevent this legislation from being passed.”

The origins of the protest lie with a group of students who began to attend meetings of the Newark School Advisory Board and who then went on to form the Newark Student Union early last month. In response to discussions about reducing the school budget, staff layoffs and closings or mergers involving 10 schools, the Newark Student Union then organized Tuesday’s walkout and rally. The Newark Public School Advisory Board, which has no veto power over the $950 million spending plan, unanimously voted against it when it was introduced by Superintendent Cami Anderson March 28, which also spurred Tuesday’s walkout.

The budget for Newark’s public schools, which have been under state control since 1995, must be approved by the state Legislature. Participants in the school walkout were urged to meet at the Rutgers law school campus on Washington Street, where the state Assembly Budget Committee was meeting to accept public comment on the budget. Protesters were among those who spoke Tuesday before joining a rally of several hundred students on the lawn outside the Center for Law and Justice.

The students  said Gov. Chris Christie was cutting services to public schools statewide even as he was giving tax breaks to wealthy corporations and individuals. Those speakers say Newark’s state aid, currently at $714 million, should be closer to $766 million under a formula established by state law in 2008 and by the Abbot vs. Burke court decision from the 1980s, which applies  to New Jersey’s  lowest-income school districts.  If the funding were at that level, staff layouts, school closures and other cutbacks could be avoided, said Thais Marques, one of the founders of the Newark Student Union.

“The legislators are our last recourse because there is no democratic process that we the students can undergo in order to create changes in the budget since we do not have local control of our schools,” said Marques. “Your job is to guarantee that state aid is at the level that the court mandates it be for urban schools.” 

Tuesday’s protest was arranged  by word-of-mouth and social media. Organizers monitored a Twitter feed throughout the day dedicated to the walkout and also circulated a YouTube video announcing it. Outside groups, such as the Education Law Center and New Jersey Working Families, also helped arrange the walkout. But several said Tuesday the walkout and protest was engineered almost exclusively by the students.

Other groups also rallied in solidarity with the youth, including members of the American Federation of Teachers, the Newark Teachers Union and the Hip Hop Students Union at Essex County College. Police on scene could not provide a precise headcount but at least a few hundred youth were assembled at Rutgers during a peaceful, orderly gathering. Students even picked up after themselves before leaving the protest site and heading across the street to a pizzeria.

Several students said Tuesday that they had been threatened with suspension or would be barred from the prom if they left their schools. Parents were also called Monday night and urged to make sure their children remain in class. At some high schools, groups of students were reportedly urged to stay but were not physically prevented from leaving, while at other schools -- including East Side High School -- walkout organizers said the buildings went on lockdown in an attempt to keep kids inside.

Those reports, however, could not be immediately confirmed. Calls placed to school district spokespeople were not returned Tuesday.

At least some of the students who walked out did not take part in the downtown protest. At Weequahic High School, one group of about a dozen students was seen pouring out of a side door and running away, followed by a second group less than five minutes later. Asked if they planned on attending the rally, one teenage boy, without breaking stride, replied  “I’m going home.” 

“They’re doing backflips over the fences. It’s been wild,” said Tanya Tucker, who lives near Weequahic High. “I heard some banging, some pounding on the doors for a long time. Then they all rushed out.”

Once students were out of school, however, Newark police let them proceed downtown unmolested and even helped them cross city streets, said Andrea Bryan, a parent of one of the protesters.  Newark mounted and motorcycle police were at the site of the protest providing crowd control, along with officers from Rutgers and the Newark Public Schools.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here