(upbeat music) - From NJ PBS studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

- Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagas.

>>> Coming up, one Newark charter school's blue ribbon award is called into question.

Our own urban education writer, Julie O'Connor, tells us all that she uncovered about the school in her reporting.

Plus, an alarming new Rucker study about firearm suicides after the pandemic and what it reveals about disparities among gun owners.

We'll talk to the researcher.

But first, NJ Transit CEO, Chris Calori joins us to discuss the latest on World Cup transit preparations.

That's next.

Major funding for NJ Spotlight News is provided in part by NJM Insurance Group, serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

Well, there's less than a month to go until the first game of the World Cup is played at MetLife Stadium, or as it's being called, New York-New Jersey Stadium.

Since our last update, the prices for a round-trip train ticket to and from the games has dropped from a whopping $150 down to $98.

That change came after public outcry inspired a slew of corporate donors to step in and help offset some of the costs to NJ Transit.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently announced her own reductions.

Shuttle tickets that were once priced at $80 to get to and from MetLife will now cost just $20 and 20% of those tickets will be reserved for New York residents.

She used taxpayer dollars to offset those costs and with concerns around all of these costs it seems that Governor Sherrill has backed away from a proposed sales tax hike that would have upped it by 3% while the tournament was being played in the Meadowlands region.

So with days to go.

What else should you know?

Here to give us the latest is NJ Transit President and CEO Chris Calori.

Chris great to have you with us.

Obviously I think the biggest news that fans are most curious about is this reduced train ticket price.

We saw a drop from one hundred fifty dollars down to ninety eight.

I just have to ask you how did this happen.

I mean I know that corporate sponsors got involved to I guess in some way save the day a bit.

Yep.

Look I think the governor has been very forthright on this from the very beginning.

She says that she has said that New Jersey commuters or taxpayers would not pick up the tab for fans to go to the stadium and back to their destination.

But I will tell you at the same time she also said that she will and the administration would look for sponsorships to defray the cost of the of the transportation that we have to provide.

And in the end it was a combination of corporate sponsors higher than anticipated advertising revenue to New Jersey Transit and frankly federal grants that came in that ultimately brought the cost down from $150 to $98.

So on these eight days that the games will be played there's going to be a complete disruption in NJ Transit's schedules.

We'll talk in a minute about the impact to regular riders but can you just explain the route for folks who are planning to get to the games.

How will this all happen?

What will change in terms of this specific route they take?

Interestingly enough, out of the 40,000 people we have to carry, we believe 28,000 will come from Penn Station, New York and the remaining 12 will come from other parts including New Jersey.

So for our regular commuters it is important to know that their life will go on because our access to our New Jersey Transit bus, our New Jersey Transit regular trains, PATH, ferries, Amtrak will all still be available.

So the point of r disruption really is for four hours before the game.

Penn Station will divert commuters to PATH.

And then three hours after the game, the same thing will happen.

Other than that, everything goes as normal and those commuters won't be charged anymore for it.

What happens, Chris, if the catenary wires fail, if something goes wrong that wasn't planned on the rails?

As the governor says, she was in the military and she plans for a contingency on contingency.

And we have done the same here.

Look, as you know, Amtrak is going to be very, very important to us to make sure we execute this plan.

Should there be a disruption, there are bus contingencies, which are not going to be pretty, but we will still do everything in our power to move people during the disruption.

Our hope, and we have emphasized this with Amtrak, very, very strongly that we need that system to work in order for us to carry our plan perfectly.

So ticket sales did go live earlier this month, right?

May 13th.

What are you seeing so far?

Are tickets selling at the rate that you expected?

Are they sold out?

Are they still available?

They're still available.

Look, we've done over 11,000 tickets in less than a week.

The good news with that is that it is on pace.

I know people expect these to be like concert tickets, but I think what happens is those FIFA fans don't even have their actual tickets to the game yet.

That'll come closer to the game.

I think that's when you'll begin to see an increase in the purchase of transportation services.

So we're prepared for it.

I know the host community is doing the same thing.

Let me ask you about New York and the fact that Governor Hoekel announced that shuttle bus tickets will be reduced from eighty dollars to twenty.

What impact does that have on transit.

Does that mean perhaps a divergence of folks you are counting on to offset the costs.

Now traveling by bus.

Interestingly enough there are about 68000 people who we thought were going to take rideshare like Uber or Lyft.

As you can imagine sitting in traffic in midtown trying to get from using an Uber or Lyft to the Meadowlands complex is a challenge.

So the thinking is most of those people who are going to take Uber or Lyft will now shift to the school buses.

But ultimately, look, I think we have presented a plan where we are willing to play our part in moving 40,000 people.

The only thing I'll say is like the Super Bowl, if people took a school bus and somehow are not happy with it and then decided they're going to take the train?

The answer is going to be you got to take the mode you took to the complex to go back.

There's no bum-rushing to the trains after you are either dissatisfied with the service or not happy that you sat in traffic for a very long time.

So what we're saying to people is there are tickets available on New Jersey Transit, buy it now.

And I'm curious about what you're saying to a more global audience because obviously a lot of the folks who are coming here and are going to be using our transit system are out of the country at this moment.

Is there a global information campaign that you've been a part of or that the host committee that you know of has been a part of?

Yeah the host committee is definitely a part of a larger presence but look we are on all platforms, all social media platforms so I think the algorithms on the social media platforms are doing their job because we are seeing tickets that are selling abroad on New Jersey Transit.

And just very quickly is there any possibility that NJ Transit takes a loss because you've diverted the trains, they're not open to regular riders, if you don't hit the numbers you expect?

I think ultimately the governor's lens on this is correct.

We have said we are doing everything in our power to make sure we run a service because we want to highlight the the state of New Jersey and we plan for a budget that reflects that model and I think in the end a lot of people will use the system whether it is exactly 40,000 or not remains to be seen but I'm pretty confident in the end there is no way of getting around the fact that people will use New Jersey Transit.

All right, Chris Calori, President and CEO of NJ Transit and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, thank you so much.

Thank you.

During the pandemic, gun purchases surged across the country.

Now there are a number of reasons for that, but a new Rucker study looked into what happens in the years after these types of gun buying surges, and it raises a lot of questions about suicide prevention, warning signs, and safe gun storage.

Joining me now to talk about the study and its findings is Michael Anastas, Executive Director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at the Rucker School of Public Health.

Michael, thank you so much for taking some time to talk to us today.

I want to talk about this study.

Your study really looks at some of the data that resulted from this large gun purchasing surge that we saw in 2020.

But before we get into what the data shows us, can you just help our viewers understand why there was a gun purchasing surge in 2020?

Yeah, absolutely.

So there wasn't one single answer, but there were a number of things going on in the world at that time that may have motivated some folks who otherwise wouldn't have purchased a firearm to go ahead and do so.

One of them was the pandemic, right?

Societal shutdowns, a lot of uncertainty in people's lives may have prompted them to buy a firearm to feel safe.

There was a racial justice movement and the murder of George Floyd that may have motivated some folks who felt not looked out for by society in general to again take protection in their own hands and then also traditionally anytime there's an upcoming political election where it looks like a more progressive candidate might get elected sometimes folks are nervous that might usher in an era of what you might call gun control laws and so people purchase ahead of the election in an effort to get ahead of any restrictions that might come into play.

So with all of that in mind there are previous studies that show that there is a correlation between gun purchases and what happens in the one year following and then 10 years following that gun ownership as it relates to suicide rates.

Particularly in your study, what did you look at?

What kind of data were you calling here?

Yeah, we were really looking at that one year period following 2020.

And so yeah, there's generally a surge in the year following purchase in terms of risk for suicide, even though most suicide deaths happen a decade or more after someone's already on the firearm.

So we were interested in that initial period, if for no other reason, then that's the only data available so far.

So we're really comparing folks who died by suicide before the purchasing surge to folks who died by suicide right after that surge took place.

And so really the study looks from 2003 to 2021.

When you compared 17 years pre-pandemic to one year post-pandemic, what did you find?

We found a number of trends, some of which really surprised us, some of which are pretty troubling.

One of them is that some of the communities that were really heavily represented in the firearm purchasing surge, black adults, for instance, were also more likely to be dying by suicide in the year following the surge than they were in the year, the years preceding it.

We also saw in a troubling trend that the folks who were dying following the surge were not only more likely to have endorsed suicidal ideation in some capacity, but they were less likely to have been in mental health care at the time of their death or any other time before that.

So we have folks who are overrepresented in the firearm purchasing surge, a lot of marginalized communities, and also folks who weren't seeking help at the time of their death.

Is there any information that you can gather as to why this particular group, why people of color, were more likely to die, why they were less likely to receive mental health treatment?

Yeah, again, our data can only tell us so much, but data from other studies can start to fill in the gaps in the picture.

One of the reasons why folks are more likely to die is pretty straightforward.

where there's more firearms in the home in a given community, the suicide rate goes up, right?

it's just an unambiguous association between household firearm access and death by suicide.

and that risk extends to everybody in the home.

so when you saw black adults being more represented amongst firearm owners, you then see black adults be more represented amongst folks who died by suicide.

now why were those folks less likely to seek help?

well, these marginalized communities of folks who are dying at a higher rate post-surge have also historically had a lot of reasons to question mental health care in terms of the way they've been treated and they also have sometimes less access to mental health care but that's because of economic differences or simply a lack of folks in the community providing evidence-based care to help them so there's a number of obstacles to seeking help that may have also furthered this trend.

there's almost an irony here that's impossible not to point out where you have folks who are buying guns and because there's clearly this sense that they need to protect themselves and in the end we end up seeing the surge in suicides it ends up becoming you know quite the opposite you you do a lot of work when it comes to prevention and gun safety.

I'm just curious what your position is in terms of how someone can safely store and secure a gun in their home.

Yeah and as you said people when they're bringing firearms in their home they're not bringing it in because they want to introduce danger or they don't care about suicide it's that they feel a need to protect themselves their loved ones and their property and the firearm is brought in to serve that function and I think that we as a society have not done a great job of helping people understand how to balance the risk that come from outside the home like home invasion and the risks that come from inside the home like suicide risk or unintentional shootings when a kid picks up a gun.

And so as a suicide prevention focused person what I encourage people to do is store their firearms unloaded separate from ammo, so it's not in arms reach, and locked up.

Whether that means a lock on the gun or the gun stored in a gun safe or a lock box.

I also encourage folks to voluntarily, temporarily, and legally store the firearm outside of home during times of crisis.

That said, there's a lot of different ways folks can store their firearms in their home that slow down the access or limit risk of access amongst people having a hard time that can fit within the value system and needs of that household.

So there isn't one specific way people have to do it, but they need to think about protecting themselves from the risk of suicide just as they think about protecting themselves of the risk of home invasion.

Michael, what is your advice to someone who might be having some suicidal ideation or thoughts if they do own a gun?

So, my recommendation first is seek out care from a mental health care provider who can provide evidence-based care and make sure that you're getting the help that you need to live the life you want to live.

If you're hesitant to do that or you want to build up your safety in addition, what I really encourage folks to do again is make sure if there's a firearm in the home or any other method you might use for a suicide attempt, make sure it's harder to access.

And in fact, if you're able to, get that method outside of the home until people are feeling more like themselves.

And then of course, bring things back to the way they were.

We always adjust our lifestyle to fit what's going on in our lives.

This is one more space for folks can make adjustments that fit their own values and rights and also work to keep them safe, which was the whole point of bringing the gun in the home in the first place.

Before I let you go, I do, there is another point from the study that I wanted to bring up, which is the fact that your study points out that more women purchased guns and firearms in 2020.

Is there any correlation there between increased rates of suicide among women?

So, we were surprised to find actually that the suicide rates were leaning more towards men post-2020 relative to how they were pre-2020.

And so, we would have thought women would have been more represented given that they were purchasing at a higher rate than they had been before.

But a couple things are important to remember.

Women were buying firearms at a higher rate than they were before, but men still make up most of the firearm owners.

And as we noted, you typically have 10 or more years before you used your firearm in your death by suicide.

And so most of the firearms used in suicide deaths had already been in the home and presumably had largely been owned by men.

But it's also important to remember that women were more likely to have lived in a home where there was already a firearm, but they didn't consider themselves the firearm owner.

Their partner was.

So it's also possible that a lot of the women who purchased firearms during that surge already had firearms in the home.

And so this new firearm didn't introduce risk.

It just sort of changed the flavor of it.

- That's interesting.

And of course, following the data by 2030 will be another point at which you'll check in and see if the numbers have changed.

We have to leave it there, but Michael Anastas, Executive Director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at the Rutgers School of Public Health.

Thank you so much for the insight today.

- Thank you very much.

- A Newark charter school is at the center of scrutiny over its operating practices.

Administrators at New Horizons Community Charter School in Newark paid thousands of dollars for a blue ribbon distinction that critics say gave families a misleading picture of its success.

And some former staff say the charter school engaged in problematic behavior for years.

Our urban education writer, Julie O'Connor, investigated the school and broke this reporting, and she joins us now to talk about it.

Julie, good to talk to you.

Now, you raised some really important issues about some things that have been happening, in particular in one charter school in Newark.

I wanna dig into the issue of this charter school, New Horizons Charter School, purchasing a blue ribbon designation.

We know that blue ribbon designations have been awarded for decades from the federal and state government.

What happened here that they were able to purchase one?

The school purchased its award from an outfit that's set up as a non-profit and it's called Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence.

It's based in South Carolina and it sends out emails to schools, including in states like New Jersey.

And if you pay about $8,000, you can get an award that's also called Blue Ribbon.

And you can also pay conference fees to go down to a luxury resort at Disney and accept that award.

And this school in particular did that, paid to send eight administrators to Disney to accept this award.

And other schools in New Jersey have done so as well.

You know roughly 15 schools in New Jersey have paid for this award in the past few years and across the country more than 230 schools have paid for this award and many of them are doing the same thing sending administrators to Disney to accept it at a four day conference.

What's really interesting here is that most folks see that blue ribbon designation.

They have no idea that there's a difference between government issued blue ribbon and this private one that you can pay for.

By the way, with taxpayer dollars, we would assume since this came from the school budget.

What is the impact here when it comes to perhaps a school looking on paper, like it's actually doing academically much better than it may be?

I spoke to parents who called it very deceptive.

They thought that this Blue Ribbon Award was the official Blue Ribbon designation from the government.

And they said that the school never said that the award was paid for.

And I also spoke with experts, you know, experts in the official Blue Ribbon program who have studied that program and had never even heard that of this other outlet that is selling these awards.

And they were shocked to hear about it.

And, you know, folks are saying, critics are saying that it's a misuse of taxpayer dollars and they are calling on state officials to step in and do something about it because they say that it's essentially, you know, schools deceiving their communities and leading people to believe that they are blue-ribbon schools as designated by the government.

Yeah, and you did some digging into New Horizons Charter School and its actual academic performance, along with some other allegations.

Talk to us about the conversations you had with former staff who raised some real concerns about what's been happening here at this charter school.

New Horizons Charter School in Newark has been on probation for three years now, you know, for a variety of things, poor test scores, ineffective instruction, other issues, and, you know, current and former staffers are saying that the problems extend beyond what the state has identified in putting New Horizons on probation.

They say that there are, you know, big bonuses, big compensation awarded to its top administrators.

They say that vital services are being denied to kids, that there's a toxic work environment, and that the school has been falsifying information on reports to the state and to the federal government.

So now there's a federal investigation into New Horizons.

Why a federal investigation?

Why not a state investigation, especially considering the fact that they are already on probation?

It's a great question.

The FBI requested documents from a former staffer who says that, you know, this person says that they turned over, you know, financial information just showing these big bonuses.

And, you know, the FBI would neither confirm nor deny whether they're looking into this school.

But the question is, how is this, you know, why weren't state officials more interested in this?

The school is already on probation.

You know, I reached out to the Department of Education and asked about these bonuses, you know, did you all approve these bonuses?

And they said that bonuses are solely left to the charter schools board of trustees, which former staffers say is closely aligned with its superintendent, who is paying out these bonuses to folks in her inner circle, they said.

So the question is, in a state that has roughly 84 charter schools, of which only about six are currently on probation, including New Horizons, why didn't this get a closer look?

There's about seven staffers in the state's charter office.

Why didn't they look into this, given that federal officials seem interested?

As you said, there is an office in the Department of Education specifically for charter schools, right?

They have oversight authority for this exact purpose.

Yes, that's right.

Did you hear anything from the Department of Education indicating that now they might give this a second look?

I have not heard anything from them.

Even charter school supporters that I spoke with say that it's the responsibility of the Department of Education to ensure that public dollars are spent effectively.

And I spoke to a former education commissioner who says that it's philosophically inconsistent to say that this is not the duty of the state to oversee this sort of thing.

Overall, charter schools in Newark have good test scores and are popular with parents.

But when a charter school struggles, if it's not able to improve, then the state is supposed to step in and shut it down.

- I wanna switch gears, Julie, because you've done some other reporting looking at a no-bid contract that the Newark Board of Education awarded to a developer who is a was a donor to Mayor Baraka's gubernatorial campaign.

His name is Scott Fields.

You you really uncovered what was happening behind the scenes.

Since that reporting we've seen some action taken by a Republican lawmaker, Assemblyman Alex Sawicki.

What is he proposing now to try to stop these types of deals from happening?

The Assemblyman is proposing two bills.

One would require approval from voters or the local board of school estimate.

That's like a hybrid group of city and school officials, you know, for any school lease exceeding 15 years.

And the second bill would require low wealth districts that receive construction funding from the state to solicit at least three lease proposals before entering into an agreement with a developer to build and lease a school building.

And, you know, the assemblyman who proposed these bills says that his purpose is to try and avoid what he called sweetheart deals and to ensure that these types of projects get more scrutiny and more details are released to the public.

And, Julie, what have you heard from Mayor Baracca when it comes to this issue?

Mayor Baracca, you know, he denies any involvement.

He says that the school board is completely independent and he has no role in, you know, discussing or choosing developers for real estate issues.

So, he says that this is, you know, an unfair attack on him.

And, of course, not an attack on him, but it is fair to point out that he has backed the Newark Board of Ed winners, those who hold positions within the Newark Board of Ed for the last few election cycles.

Yes, that's true.

Yeah.

And for a little more background there, we did speak with Newark Superintendent Roger Leon, who said, look, we have been in need of a new school building.

We are not getting it from the state.

It is the school's development authority that's responsible.

They're not going to be able to do that.

>> We're going to be building highlighted of $500 million.

And so we'll see now if assemblyman Sawicki's bill does move through the legislature.

If more broadly others agree that we need more checks and balances in place.

But Julie O'Connor, excellent reporting, our urban education writer.

Thank you so much.

- Thanks, Joanna.

- That's gonna do it for us tonight.

For the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News, I'm Joanna Gaggis.

Thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

(upbeat music) - New Jersey Education Association, making public schools great for every child and RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn more at rwjbh.org.

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