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The U.S. Department of Justice has quietly ended its monitoring of Newark Public Schools’ English language learner program, even after the department, under former President Joe Biden, found that the district did not consistently use qualified interpreters for non-English speaking parents, Chalkbeat has learned.
A 2021 settlement agreement found “wide-ranging failures” in the district’s English learner program and gave the district until the end of 2024 to fix 10 issues that violated federal law.
In December 2024, the Justice Department found the district had fixed the majority of the problems but was not consistently using qualified interpreters to help parents with limited English proficiency when they contacted schools or provided information in a language they understood, according to a federal letter that partially terminated and extended the 2021 settlement agreement.
The Justice Department also found that district staff were using Google Translate to provide school information to parents who speak limited English. Those deficiencies prompted the department to extend the agreement to July, according to the federal department’s 2024 letter.
But then in April, Alina Habba, who was appointed acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey by President Donald Trump, notified the district that it had satisfied its requirements under the 2021 settlement agreement and the 2024 extended agreement. The district has not publicly announced the end of federal monitoring but instead tucked the news into a May board committee report.
The extended agreement required the district to conduct testing to determine staff’s ability to understand and speak a particular language and submit a proposal to the Justice Department in February. It also required the district to submit a final report by July 1. It is unclear what happened to those requirements now that the monitoring has ended.
The Justice Department investigation that resulted in the 2021 settlement agreement began in 2017, when the school district was still under state control, in response to complaints that Newark was failing English learners. The investigation took four years and found that the district was not complying with federal civil rights laws related to education. Specifically, it found that the district’s practices left some English learners with little or no language services, while others were removed from language programs before they were fluent in English.
As a result, the district in 2021 agreed to overhaul its English learner program and comply with the terms of a 25-page settlement agreement that required the district to assess all students who spoke languages other than English to check if they needed language services, provide those services at any school the students attended, hire more qualified teachers, monitor their progress, and report back to federal officials.
Newark Public Schools’ English language learner population has been growing over the years, and school officials are wrestling with a shortage of bilingual teachers who can communicate in different languages. Since the 2020-21 school year, English language learners in the district have grown from 17.1% to 24.2% in 2023, according to 2023-24 New Jersey school performance report.
The district is home to more than 11,000 English language learners and includes a mix of students born in the country and abroad. Most speak Spanish or Portuguese, although some speak Arabic, French, Haitian Creole, or other languages.
Paul Brubaker, the district’s communications director, did not respond to emails about Newark Public Schools’ plan to fix problems with using qualified interpreters.
The Justice Department has not explained its rationale for ending its oversight, nor has it released a report outlining how the district has met its obligations.
The federal agency declined to comment about the end of monitoring, wrote NaSheena Porter Poznansky, public affairs officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office District of New Jersey, via email on June 5.
Since Trump entered office in January, he has been clear about stripping away practices and policies that support diversity, equity, and inclusion in schools. In March, Trump declared English the official language of the United States and fired nearly every Education Department employee responsible for ensuring that school districts were using federal funds meant to help English learners.
DOJ highlighted NPS’ translator deficiencies over the years
Among the 10 ways the district violated federal law, the Justice Department had already found it was not communicating effectively with non-English speaking parents and that it was also failing to staff its English learner programs with certified bilingual teachers, according to the 2021 settlement agreement.
In recent years, students reported using translator apps on their phones to communicate with teachers, while others, during a January 2024 board meeting, said it was tough to communicate with classmates. A former teacher during the January 2024 meeting also said educators weren’t getting enough support to help bilingual students.
As part of the Justice Department’s four-year monitoring beginning in 2021, federal officials visited district schools, according to 2023 and 2024 federal compliance letters to the district. They observed several English as a second language and bilingual classes and interviewed principals, bilingual needs assessment teachers, and the enrollment clerks, according to the letters.
Justice Department officials under the Biden administration found that most schools had a list of staff, and in some cases districtwide staff, who spoke different languages, but those lists typically included a combination of staff who were certified bilingual and others who self-identified as speaking other languages in response to a school survey, according to 2023 federal compliance letters.
Similarly, federal officials in 2023 also found that the district had yet to train all ESL teachers who also worked with students with disabilities, according to federal compliance letters. Federal officials also found that the district did not hire enough staff with experience related to the intersection of English learners and special education services, according to 2023 compliance letters.
In 2024, federal officials continued to visit Newark schools and found that the district had made progress by hiring more certified ESL teachers after finding that some schools had no long-term ESL substitute teachers. The district also provided more resources to bilingual needs assessment teachers, who are required to help parents with the enrollment process by using qualified interpreters. Newark also improved the way it tracked English learner progress and bolstered student requirements to exit the district’s English learner program.
Despite Newark’s shortcomings, the district “has worked diligently” to correct the problems outlined in the 2021 settlement agreement and has demonstrated “substantial compliance” with the terms of the agreement for at least one year, as required by the agreement, the December 2024 letter noted.
However, that same letter also noted that the district did not consistently use qualified interpreters at schools or through Language Line, a company that provides translation and interpretation services to help organizations communicate with people who speak different languages. It also noted that school clerks and other district staff are responsible for speaking with non-English speaking parents about registration, school selections, enrollment, and English learner services.
Federal officials also noted in the 2024 letter that staff should be reminded to use qualified interpreters and materials translated by them when communicating with parents with limited English proficiency and must be trained on using telephone-based interpretation services.
This school year, the district launched a new bilingual education program at Malcolm X Shabazz High School to help Newark’s growing population of English language learners access services closer to where they live.
Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.
