Montclair parents sue BOE in federal court to force immediate return to in-person learning – NorthJersey.com

MONTCLAIR — A group of parents has filed a class-action suit against the Board of Education in federal court asking the judge to force the schools to immediately reopen for “full-time, in-person instruction, five days a week.”

The plaintiff’s attorney is Keri Avellini, a parent in the South Orange Maplewood school district who recently filed a similar federal case against that district. 

This is the second suit in Montclair over the district’s ongoing closure to in-person instruction. On Feb. 2, Superintendent Jonathan Ponds announced that the district had sued the teacher’s union, the Montclair Education Association, to force a return to the classroom.

On Feb 10, a Superior Court judge in Essex County ruled in favor of the union, saying the district had “failed to show how it has complied with [state] health and safety standards.”

The plaintiffs in the class-action suit, filed on Feb. 18, represent the “overwhelming majority of families in the Montclair District (over 75% from a recent District survey) who are in favor of the safe, successful and immediate return to in-person learning at our schools,” said Steve Baffico, an investment manager and parent with two young children in the system.

“At the beginning of this pandemic, virtual learning was an understandable situation and temporary exercise. At this point, a year later, it is abundantly clear that there is a collective and ongoing failure by those entrusted to protect the welfare of the children of our community,” he said.

He added, “This debacle is further jeopardizing our younger students’ academic, emotional, social and physical well-being, already fragile and damaged after a year of remote instruction.”

Superintendent Jonathan Ponds did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Baffico said that more than 80% of New Jersey public schools have returned to some form of in-person learning model and have done so safely

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School and union officials have been locked in a bitter standoff since Jan. 19, when elementary school teachers failed to attend an in-person training day to prepare for a return to hybrid, in-person learning on Jan. 25. After the district was forced to cancel the reopening, frustrated parents protested in front of Edgemont Elementary School, bearing signs that read “Stop harming kids” and “Get our kids back in school.”

Baffico said that the suit is important because it gives parents a seat at the negotiating table. 

“The children are the most critical constituent yet have not had a voice and/or an advocate,” he said. 

Julia Martin covers Montclair for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: jmartin@gannettnj.com

Twitter: @TheWriteJulia