⚠️ Newark schools approved a $500 million no-bid lease for a new elementary school.
➡️ The developer donated at least $92,500 tied to Mayor Ras Baraka’s campaigns.
🔴 Republicans want the state to block the deal and tighten school lease rules statewide.
NEWARK — A GOP lawmaker is blasting New Jersey’s largest school district over a half-billion-dollar deal with one of the mayor’s top donors.
The Newark school board is backing a plan to lease a property on Freeman Street for $500 million over the next 30 years. An abandoned Catholic school would be demolished to make way for a four-story elementary school serving fewer than 700 students. The school district would not own the building after the lease expires.
In an interview with NJ Spotlight News, Newark Public Schools Superintendent Roger Leon defended the $1.4 million-a-month lease agreement as a “great strategy” given the city’s current state of affairs. He said that by law, the New Jersey Schools Development Association has sole discretion to build new schools. According to Leon, the district was promised 40 new school buildings and got only nine…