Growing up in Newark, Allison James-Frison was a good student, but she had to work so hard in math-related classes that she felt something was wrong.
Despite her difficulty, James-Frison wasn’t failing, and no adult ever asked about her struggles. So she kept her learning problem to herself and just worked harder, but with the added stress and damage to her self-esteem.
Now, after suffering family traumas, an abusive domestic situation, and bouts of homelessness, James-Frison is running for one of three open seats on the Newark Board of Education in the April 19 election, hoping to make sure problems like hers don’t get overlooked in today’s students.
“I just don’t want that to be any other children’s story,” said James-Frison, 53, who has a 14-year-old daughter and runs a mentoring program known as Girls; Live, Love, Laugh, Inc.
She’s one of seven candidates in next month’s race for school board, a nine-member body that sets policy and approves spending and personnel decisions by an administration led by Superintendent Roger León.
Among the six other candidates are: incumbent A’Dorian Murray-Thomas, who is finishing her first full three-year term; incumbent Daniel Gonzalez, who won a special election last year to fill the unexpired term of Octavio Padilla, who died in November 2020; and newcomers Crystal Williams, Tommy Luna, Philip Wilson, and Maggie Freeman.
Murray-Thomas, Gonzalez, and Williams are running on a slate backed by Mayor Ras Baraka, ahead of his re-election bid in Newark’s May 10 non-partisan municipal election.
Newark is the state’s largest district, with a 2021-22 enrollment of 37,911 students in 65 regular public schools and a budget of $1.08 billion funded in part by local property taxes but mainly through $915 million in state aid. Separately, there are more than 20,000 charter school students.
In addition to casting ballots for board members in next month’s election, Newark residents will vote to approve or reject the school budget. The district will unveil its proposed 2022-23 budget during a virtual public hearing on Friday at 6 p.m. Voters have a March 29 deadline to register.
Next month’s election will be Newark’s fourth since the city regained control of the district in 2018 following 22 years under a state takeover intended to improve student performance and financial management. During the state takeover, the board acted in a purely advisory capacity, with no power over a superintendent appointed by the state.
Incoming board members will face test scores that lag behind statewide averages; learning losses resulting from the pandemic; technology gaps and other challenges for a student population with economic and other disadvantages. For example, 82% of Newark students qualify for free or reduced- price lunches, and 18.5% are not proficient in English. According to district figures, the student population is 51% Hispanic, 38.8% Black, and 8.4% white.
James-Frison is a first-time candidate facing long odds in a field that includes a well-organized slate backed by Newark’s mayor. And all of her rivals have done volunteer or non-profit work in the community. But like many of Newark’s students, James-Frison has had to overcome extraordinary challenges of her own.
Her father was stabbed to death in October 1987, four months after she graduated from Central High School, beginning a long spiral of insecurity, despair, and neglect of her finances that, despite regular employment, meant she was often without an address.
Seen here in a campaign image, members of the Moving Newark Schools Forward slate for three school board seats are, l-r, A'Dorian Murray-Thomas, Daniel Gonzalez, and Crystal Williams.Courtesy of Moving Newark Schools Forward
Murray-Thomas, 26, is a Newark native who lives in the Central Ward and works as associate director of equity and inclusion at the private Morristown Beard School in Morris County. Murray-Thomas, who has no children, is the founder and CEO of the non-profit SHE Wins Inc., dedicated to helping girls and young women forge college and career paths after their parents or siblings were lost to gun violence.
She’s proud of her board work on gender equity issues and on establishing partnerships with parents, students, and other stakeholders. But she said, “there’s a tremendous amount of more work to do.”
Gonzalez, 51, is a Newark native who in 2008 moved back to the city from Ridgewood, where his two grown children went to school.
He is a former city finance director who now holds that job at the Joint Meeting of Essex and Union Counties, a regional sewerage authority.
“I felt that the board needed some financial experience, and I feel that I fill the void,” he said.
Williams, a Verizon network technician, has seven children in grades pre-K through college, most in Newark public schools.
“Each child is different and needs something different, both emotionally and educationally,” Williams wrote in an email. “And as we are seeing unprecedented financial investment in our schools from federal funds, it’s important to have school board members who are comfortable asking tough questions to ensure that we are using evidenced-based practices to help our children recover.”
In contrast, independent candidate Thomas Luna’s experience is not as a parent — he has no children — but as a teacher and policymaker. Luna teaches 8th-grade math at Rise Academy, part of the Knowledge is Power Program, or KIPP, a network of charter schools in Newark and Camden.
Tommy Luna, a charter school math teacher, is an independent candidate for one of three open seats on the Newark school board.Courtesy of Tommy Luna
Charter schools are officially public schools, chartered and funded by the state but run by private groups or education companies with their own non-elected board of trustees, and operated independently of the school district in which they’re located.
Newark is New Jersey’s biggest charter school district, with a population of 20,477 students in a total of 51 schools, or campuses, operating under 17 charters, according to the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association.
Luna, 34, who lives in the East Ward, is also co-chair of Newark for Educational Equity and Diversity, or NEED, where he pushed for district bylaws on filling board vacancies. This is his first bid for elected office, and he conceded it would be tough to beat a slate that was backed by the mayor and includes two incumbents.
“It’s an uphill battle,” Luna said. “But at the end of the day, we just need one seat.”
Independent candidate Philip Wilson is a father of five who works as an auto body shop consultant and formerly taught the subject at vocational-technical schools in Essex and Union counties. He believes that VoTech classes should be offered at every school to help turn out plumbers, electricians, and other skilled tradesmen and women or simply to boost students’ self-sufficiency.
“Every day something goes wrong in your house,” said Wilson, 40. Wilson’s five kids include two daughters from a previous relationship and three boys — a kindergartner and twins in pre-K — with his wife in Newark, giving him at least one unique qualification.
“The district doesn’t have a Black father on the school board,” he said. “Our kids need that.”
Maggie Freeman, a Newark native and district parent who is the program director of the non-profit Weehahic Park Sports Authority youth athletic program, was not available for an interview.
One of the three board seats up for grabs belongs to Shayvonne Anderson, who is not seeking re-election when her three-year term expires in May. Instead, Anderson plans to devote more time to her son and to a non-profit organization she’s launching, Healing Her, which is an extension of her for-profit natural childbirth business, Healing Her Doula Services.
“Honestly, I believe, and what I always tell people, you can do more as a community member than as a board member,” she said. Anderson’s advice to any newly elected member of the volunteer board was to learn their responsibilities and ethical guidelines, prepare to spend at least 10 hours a month in board and committee meetings alone, and be willing to compromise.
“Don’t come in with these ideas or thoughts of what is going to be,” she said, “or that other people have the same priorities as you.”
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Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com