A divided Jersey City Board of Education rejected a move to name Public School No. 34 after President Barack Obama last week, but Assemblywoman Angela McKnight said she would try again. Sources say that some members want to instead name the school after a sitting board member and long-time educator.
Board members rejected the proposal to name the school after the nation’s first African-American president at the Aug 23 caucus meeting by a 3 to 4 vote.
Board members Gerald Lyons, Lorenzo Richardson, Marilyn Roman, and Vice President John Reichart voted against the measure.
Board Member Joel Torres abstained. Board President Vidya Gangadin was absent.
A number of those who opposed naming the school after Obama appear to be poised to name the school after Board Vice President Marilyn Roman.
McKnight said she was disappointed by not discouraged that the board would name a school predominately attended by students of color after a white woman. She said it is the wish of the majority of parents and students associated with the school to name it after Obama.
McKnight, who has been collecting signatures on a petition to encourage the board to reconsider, said she was disturbed by the fact that the board voted on the matter at a caucus meeting rather than a regular meeting.
McKnight said she and other members of the community who had come to the Aug. 24 found that the board had voted on the matter the day before at the caucus.
“We put them on notice that we would be attending the public meeting to make a case for naming the school after President Obama,” McKnight said.
The board vote was largely along political lines, with those aligned with Roman voting against naming it after Obama. Board Vice President John Reichart appears to also be in favor of naming the school after Roman.
School 34, a pre-K through eight school located on Kennedy Boulevard in the Greenville section of Jersey City, would have joined a handful of schools nationwide to be named after President Obama.
“Micheline, Jessica, and I voted for Obama, as he was the choice of the school community and the school community followed the proper procedure to the letter,” said Board Member Ellen Simon.
Board President Gangadin, who would have likely voted to name the school for Obama, was not present at either the caucus or the regular meeting on Aug. 24
“Jerry Lyons said in an open meeting that, and this is a real quote, `Marilyn, I worship you as a goddess.’ He’s the one who’s really pushing for this. And I think Marilyn really wants it,” Simon said.
Lyons and other board members, however, have refrained from commenting since the vote, referring all questions to Gangadin. Since she is out of town, Reichart serves as spokesperson but has not yet responded for comment.
In public session as well as in a letter of support, Lyons expressed support for naming the school after Roman, even though Lyons has also expressed admiration for Obama as well. Lyons said it ss appropriate that Roman should be honored in such a way.
Future politics may influence the vote
Simon said she believed Reichart voted against Obama for other reasons.
“John is a Republican who supports Trump,” she said.
But Reichart is on record in his admiration for Roman, and has praised Roman in the past for her dedication to the school district both as a teacher and as a longtime board member.
“As a matter of fact, I’m a registered Republican,” Reichart said. “I actually pushed to have [a different school] School 20 named after Obama. But when parents there wanted it named after Maya Angelou instead, we voted for that.” That school did get named after Angelou.
But he said he supports School 34 being named after Roman.
“I support Angela McKnight and I think she works very hard, but my personal opinion is that this school should be named after Marilyn. I believe we can find another facility in the future to name after the president.”
Reichart said Lyons had proposed naming the school after Roman more than two years ago.
“I think that’s the right thing to do,” he said. “I’ve only known Marilyn for about a year, but she’s an amazing, delightful woman whose resume speaks for itself. She has been an educator for 43 years. She has served as council president and the first female mayor. She also served as freeholder. This is her second term as board member. She is 80 years old and she is still working hard. When I have a curriculum or instructional question, Marilyn is the first person I turn to.”
“A faction on the board wants the school named for a local elected official whose highest office was a month-long stint as acting mayor.”
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Yet Simon and others believe that the vote may well have even larger local political implications.
“It seems there’s some backroom dealing around who gets to be board president next year,” said Simon, whose own term expires this year. She and the two other board members who voted in favor of renaming the school after Obama had declined to run for reelection.
“In the end it will come down to whether a board majority will let its politics trump the people’s will,” Simon said, speaking for herself and not for the Board of Education as a whole. “A faction on the board wants the school named for a local elected official whose highest office was a month-long stint as acting mayor. The community wants to name the school for a president and Nobel laureate.”
Roman briefly served as acting mayor of Jersey City in the early 1990s after then Mayor Gerry McCann was forced to resign over corruption charges.
“In a way, this illustrates the disparity between the board’s aspirations and the students’ aspirations for themselves,” Simon said.
But Reichart disagreed with Simon’s assessment.
“This has nothing to do with politics. In fact, I didn’t know about the proposal for naming the school after President Obama until I read it on the agenda,” he said, agreeing also with Lyons over how schools should be named.
At the meeting, Lyons told the board that the policy for renaming a school discourages the board from naming someone even as prominent as Obama. While the person may be living or deceased, the policy says the person so honored should be a former Jersey City teacher, administrator, employee, or a civic leader who had contributed to school district, its schools, or its students.
McKnight said she would be resubmitting Obama’s name for consideration, and has already collected more than 1,000 signatures of support.
She said the district policy allows up to 60 days to resubmit, and she will be doing so at the next meeting in September.
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com