Newark Super Calls for Pause in School Closures — For Now

Roseville Elementary and other troubled schools to be reevaluated to see which are most vulnerable

By John Mooney

Plans to close Roseville brought out protestors from across the entire city.
School closures in Newark will go on hiatus for at least a year, Superintendent Cami Anderson said yesterday, as she conducts a new analysis of all the district’s schools to determine those most vulnerable.

That means that the one elementary school slated for closure next year will get a last-minute reprieve, with Anderson’s administration notifying the staff of the Roseville Avenue Elementary School that this spring would not be their last after all.

The announced closure of Roseville sparked protests not just within the school’s community, but also from activists citywide who saw it as a continuation of a pattern of closures sweeping urban districts across the country.

Newark closed a half-dozen schools last year — Anderson’s first — and activists filed a federal civil rights complaint that the closures were destabilizing neighborhoods and targeting minority and especially low-income populations.

Anderson said yesterday said this respite is not an indication that she is pulling back her decisions or rethinking the need to shrink the district overall to offset declining enrollment. And Roseville could be considered in the future, she said.

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