A Call to Action
March 5, 2015
Dear Members of the Montclair Community:
Over the past two years, we have watched as our community has grown more fractured, our public schools more divided, and our parents increasingly disenfranchised from a process that directly impacts the educational welfare of their children. Today, we announce the launch of Montclair Kids First (MKF), a coalition of Montclair parents and residents who believe that putting our kids first means that every Montclair child should have access to a world-class education and that every parent should be empowered with accurate, timely information and a strong voice.
We believe that all ideas must be heard and respected within the community. As such, MKF will establish needed support so that every parent in Montclair can freely express his or her view, without fear of reprisal, and that long-standing questions about the District will finally be answered.
As parents, we have watched as the debate concerning our schools has been co-opted by political agendas, greed, blame and the quest for more power. While many of us are active at the school level, raising needed dollars for initiatives and volunteering for events, we have stayed away from the public “debate” displayed at our Board of Education meetings and reported by our local newspaper. As this has gone on, important issues have been lost and appointments have been made that hurt our children. Enough is enough!
Montclair claims one of the highest tax rates in the state and spends more on public education and its teachers than most districts in New Jersey. Yet, Montclair is consistently rated in the lower half of all the schools in the State and our children continue to experience significant educational deficits, including an achievement gap in which students of color continue to be deeply affected.
As parents, we experience the reality of our public education system every day. In Montclair, children who have parents that can afford to get deeply engaged in their children’s education usually succeed. For those who cannot afford a private tutor or the option of a private school, and who have seen our debate taken over by a small political fringe within our community, we are now uniting to find answers and to build common solutions.
To help us get these answers, and to ensure that every parent in Montclair can freely express his or her view, without fear of retaliation, we have retained Lowenstein Sandler LLP to support our efforts. Lowenstein will advise MKF on a variety of legal matters and options to ensure greater transparency and understanding regarding recent decisions involving the school District and will play an active role in researching and potentially showcasing conflicts of interests and collusion. Leading these efforts will be Lowenstein Sandler LLP Partner Shavar Jefferies. In Mr. Jefferies and his resources at Lowenstein, MKF has brought on counsel with great experience ranging from managing large-scale government investigations to representing individual parties, and he has deep experience in education reform in particular. Before Mr. Jeffries joined Lowenstein in 2014, he was an Associate Professor of Law at Seton Hall Law School’s Center for Social Justice in Newark, New Jersey, where he represented numerous clients, both in individual and class actions, challenging consumer fraud, unlawful education policies, and overly broad government actions that undermined civil liberties and individual rights. From 2008 to 2010, Mr. Jeffries was Counsel to New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram, serving in the line of succession as one of the office’s most senior officials. In that role, he oversaw all multi-state investigations, spanning a wide range of matters from securities and consumer fraud to environmental protection and products liability.
We – the parents and taxpayers of Montclair – have questions and will use our strength in numbers to demand answers as to how specific decisions are being made on behalf of our students…our kids.
For more information on MKF and to join our coalition, please go to www.montclairkidsfirst.org.
Sincerely Yours,
The Unified Membership of Montclair Kids First
