Great Oaks Legacy Charter School kicked off its 2025-26 school year last Monday with an inspiring speech by Mayor Ras Baraka to its 300 staff members.

“You can give your students an opportunity to see the world differently,” he told the educators who came back in early August to start preparing for Great Oaks’ 2,300 K-12 students. “If you don’t love the kids that you’re teaching, you can’t give them what they need in a world that is taking love from them,” the Mayor, who is himself a former school principal, said. “I want them to believe in impossible things. That they can make incredible things happen right here in the City of Newark.”

The event also featured keynote speaker LeDerick Horne, a nationally recognized poet, disability rights activist, and education consultant. In his presen

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