Newark Public school leaders are once again under fire after a leaked draft report revealed alleged racist and bigoted incidents against black students and teachers at a city school.

The report, exclusively obtained by Chalkbeat Newark, shows the administration at the Newark School of Global Studies also failed to respond to or address the problems, which in some cases only magnified the racial issues there.

I spoke with Jessie Gomez, a reporter with Chalkbeat who broke the story for the latest details.

Jessie, thanks so much for coming on the show.

You were able to get your hands on a copy of this report.

It details racial harassment, discrimination.

Give us an example of what these students and teachers were facing.

Yeah.

So, A, what has happened in the last couple of years at Newark School of Global Studies over the years and through my reporting, we've heard that school leaders and students have students and teachers at the school had experienced racist racial harassment.

We've also heard that students were called racial slurs or religious slurs, as were even anti-gay slurs.

But in this report specifically, that we were able to obtain.

It sounds like the findings were were kind of echoing those sentiments that we've been hearing throughout those interviews and throughout my reporting as well.

School leaders responses to the alleged incidents.

Incidences ranged from students having to write apologies to suspending some students.

The school also took some restorative approaches to the alleged, you know, racist incidents.

But at the end of the day, a lot of these students felt like their voices weren't being heard and that the school leaders weren't handling these issues as well as they could have.

And so what kind of effect has that had on the student body and and on the teachers?

Yeah.

And so when we talk about these issues like global studies, we have to remember that the students first spoke up in 2020 to follow 2022.

And so they've now graduated.

They were class of 2024 and have gone on to college and moved on to other things.

But during their time, especially the events occurred during their junior and senior year, and a lot of them in the middle of their school year had transferred out.

A lot of what the report also highlights is that black students at the School of Global Studies had transferred at a disproportionate rates from other demographic groups to teachers at the school as well had resigned.

And then the report we found out that there was a third teacher that also resigned as well.

Wow.

So over the years, there's been a lot of staff changes and there has been students who are transferred.

Out and so why then I mean, this is the big question.

Why is the Newark Public School District continuing to block the release of this report, even after all of the public attention and scrutiny and lawsuits filed by the teacher's union?

That's a great question and something that I've been asking Superintendent Roger Leone and the district for almost two years now.

But Superintendent Roger Leone has said in previous years that it would remain internal and it would inform the district's strategy on race and diversity.

But so far, we haven't heard what that strategy is or what changes had been made at the school.

Did the school district, Jessie, respond at least to what was included in this report?

What does that look like?

Well, we reached out for comment to the school district for this story.

They basically reiterated what they've said in court hearings, which is that this document is a privileged draft document and it's supposed to serve their diversity strategy.

And that it's supposed to inform and have conversations.

It's the report is supposed to inform them and allow them to have conversations about what the strategy is on race, if any.

But again, those details have remained private for almost two years now.

Has the mayor's office gotten involved or does it look like there will be an attempt to intervene here?

Well, back when again, these issues came to light in November 2022, Mayor Ras Baraka had hosted a Unity town hall a couple of months after that, where students who were the ones who spoke out about the racist harassment attended the event and were able to speak a little bit more about their own experiences as well.

But since then, I've reached out to the mayor's office and we really haven't heard anything more from him or if there was any accountability on his end to the school district.

Jessie Gomez is with Chalkbeat Newark.

Jessie, thank you so much.

You can, of course, read the full story on our website, NJ, Spotlight, Newstalk and of course on Chalkbeat Talk.

Jessie, thanks again.

Thanks for having me.