SCHOOL DISTRICT TOWN HALL ON RACE DRAWS IDEAS, COMPLAINTS

Several hundred parents and residents showed up at Wednesday's long-awaited town hall meeting on racial and bias issues, which the school district had promised as an answer to the string of troubling incidents at several schools.

The event held in the Columbia High School cafeteria was in response to several incidents in recent weeks that included racist messages found at CHS and South Orange Middle School, swastikas scrawled at SOMS and South Mountain School, as well as the creation of slave auction posters by South Mountain students.

The concerns were raised further several weeks ago when some students at Jefferson School took it upon themselves to hold a mock slave auction when their teacher was away and a substitute in charge.

Superintendent John Ramos opened the forum by repeating an apology he had offered earlier for the incidents and noting that some had resulted in discipline, but did not detail exactly what punishment was handed out.

After his address, participants split up into discussion groups and were tasked with offering what they believed were solutions to the problem, from better curriculum to more student input to desegregation of some schools. See some of those ideas below:

The evening also included a panel discussion and a presentation by Harvard professor and South Orange parent Khalil Gibran Muhammad. Another Town Hall meeting is planned for May 3.