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Newark Public Schools will continue its legal fight to reclaim the former Maple Avenue school building after a state judge ruled to dismiss its lawsuit in May. The same judge this week ordered the district to pay more than half a million dollars in costs to a nonprofit connected to KIPP New Jersey.
The school district will appeal Essex County Superior Court Judge Lisa Adubato’s ruling that denies “its right to regain ownership of the building” that reopened as KIPP SEEK Academy in the city’s South Ward, according to a district press release issued Thursday. The district launched its battle to reclaim the property in 2020 after filing a lawsuit against the Newark Housing Authority and Friends of TEAM Charter Schools that demanded the court void the sale of the Maple Avenue building and give it back to the district.
On Tuesday, Adubato ordered the district to pay $768,487.05 to Friends of TEAM Charter Schools, the group that owns the building and claimed it incurred additional property costs as a result of the district’s 2020 lawsuit. In May, Adubato dismissed the case after calling the district’s efforts “shameful.” She added that the lawsuit could have been avoided if the district had specified language in the property’s title that sales to charter schools were prohibited.
“This matter must be put to rest,” said Adubato on Tuesday. The district “made a promise that it would not encumber” the property, and that was a promise the owners of the building relied on, she added.
The district’s announcement to appeal Adubato’s ruling signals the next chapter in a four-year battle that started after Superintendent Roger León made a plan to expand the district and reclaim former public school buildings after becoming the first superintendent to lead the district under local control. When the district was under state control from 1995 until 2020, state-appointed superintendents closed many public schools while the charter sector boomed across the city.
The efforts to reclaim the Maple Avenue property also add to the district’s mounting legal fees in battles to reclaim other charter-owned properties and a lawsuit against it for withholding a report on the cultural analysis of Newark’s School of Global Studies, among other lawsuits. During the district’s October school board meeting, which was not live-streamed to the public, the district said pending legal settlements were one of two items posing a financial risk to the district.
“The ruling was not unexpected, as Judge Adubato had made statements on the record months ago indicating that she would rule against the Board of Education,” the district said in its Thursday’s press release.
Judge James Paganelli was initially assigned to the case in 2020 and had ruled in favor of the district, “thus paving the way for trial,” according to the release.
“However, Judge Adubato granted requests to reconsider those decisions and ruled against the board, finding that there were no issues of fact creating a need for trial,” the press release read.
Paganelli was moved to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court, where the district will file its appeal.
In 2016, Newark Public Schools, under state-appointed Superintendent Cami Anderson, transferred the Maple Avenue property and 11 others to the city’s housing authority under an agreement that the agency would sell the buildings through a public bidding process and return most of the profits to the district to help alleviate its budget crisis.
The sales were also meant to help eliminate $2 to $4 million in annual maintenance costs for buildings that were unused, according to an audio transcript of Tuesday’s hearing. The city had planned to transform the Maple Avenue building into apartments, but it is now home to more than 560 KIPP SEEK Academy elementary students. KIPP operates 11 Newark charter schools that enroll more than 5,200 students.
In 2017, the city sold the Maple Avenue property for $1.2 million to Newark-based developer Hanini Group. In 2020, the developer sold the property, which had been significantly updated, for $10 million to Friends of TEAM Charter Schools. District attorneys filed their lawsuit shortly after the KIPP-affiliated nonprofit bought the building.
The 2020 lawsuit alleged that the Maple Avenue building’s sale violated the housing authority’s deal with the district because the authority did not involve the district in the original sale, the lawsuit claims. It also alleges that the housing authority sold the building for a fraction of its appraised value and that the district-agency agreement did not allow the building to be used as a school, claims that were dismissed by Adubato earlier this year after years of arguments and reiterated on Tuesday.
“We appreciate the court’s decision to order that a significant portion of KIPP New Jersey’s expenses associated with the multi-year lawsuit be covered. Our focus remains on providing Newark students with high-quality education and safe, supportive learning environments,” said Gabriella DiFilippo, chief operating officer at KIPP NJ.
Charter schools now educate more than a third of Newark’s public school students. Since at least 2022, Newark schools have worked with a Memphis-based marketing firm to recruit students into district schools to boost enrollment. The firm, called Caissa Public Strategy, has a track record of attracting students from charter schools into districts.
León has also called on the state to close charter schools such as North Star Academy and People’s Preparatory Charter School, arguing that those schools created “a segregative effect” and prevented the district from expanding. Also in 2020, the district filed a lawsuit against People’s Prep, and the court forced the school to leave its space at Bard Early College High School earlier this year.
The district is also reviewing leases with other charter schools it houses for the “possible return of those school properties to the Board of Education,” according to school board reports. Last year, the district repurchased State Street School, one of the 12 schools transferred to the city in 2016.
State Street, Newark’s oldest school building, was also sold to the Hanini Group. Details about the agreement between the public schools and the developer have not been disclosed, according to documents in a 2023 lawsuit filed against the district by Skyway Publishing LLC, a New Jersey-based company that publishes TAPInto Newark. The district plans to renovate the school as a district museum, León has previously said.
Last spring, the district acquired the former four-story University Heights Charter School building from the state. It now houses the Nelson Mandela Elementary School. In 2022, the building was purchased by the state’s School Development Authority, which pays for school construction projects in 31 low-income districts, including Newark.
Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.
