June 2, 2005 - Newark, New Jersey

On June 2, 2005, the State Board of Education issued its latest ruling in the ongoing Englewood Cliffs v. Englewood school desegregation case. The Board’s decision addresses an emergent application by Englewood seeking $6 million for the Equity and Excellence integration program currently in place in the district, as well as a motion filed on May 6 by the Education Law Center ("ELC") and the New Jersey Conference of the NAACP to participate as amici curiae.

In its decision, the State Board denied Englewood’s application for emergent relief, granted ELC’s and NJ NAACP’s motion to appear as amici, and ordered the Commissioner to establish a budget in accordance with legal requirements. In so doing, the Board took important steps to insure that progress towards racial integration at DMHS occurs in fact.

In a series of declarations directly responsive to the concerns raised by amici in their brief, the Board asserted that:

• (1) The "Commissioner and the State Board retain[] the ultimate responsibility for developing and directing implementation of a plan to address the racial imbalance at Dwight Morrow High School";
• (2) The Commissioner’s Reports "clearly show that. . .the racial imbalance among the composite student body at Dwight Morrow is not improving;" and
• (3) The "approach taken to reduce the racial imbalance at Dwight Morrow must ultimately achieve a balance in the composite student body at Dwight Morrow."

Accordingly, the Board directed the Commissioner to develop benchmarks to measure the progress being made toward achieving racial balance at DMHS, and to issue recommendations as to adjustments that should be made to the current approach to achieving integration at Dwight Morrow.

ELC applauds the important steps the State Board has taken today to insure that real progress towards racial integration occurs in Englewood. ELC now urges the Commissioner to take decisive action pursuant to the State Board’s order and in accordance with his own suggestion, in his most recent Report to the Board, that the existing Academies approach must be transformed, and other integration plans explored, in order to address persistent racial isolation at DMHS and in the district at large.