After nearly six years of rest, PULSE (Parents Unified for Local School Education) has made a powerful return; reinvigorated, reimagined, and ready to make an impact. Once a cornerstone of parent engagement in Newark, PULSE is back with renewed energy and a bold vision for the future with the launch of a new initiative called the Parent Organizer Project (POP). Through the Parent Organizer Project, 14 new parent organizers have been trained over the last 7 months on topics like organizing, public speaking, and critical participatory action research. This comeback and renewed capacity beckon not just a revival but a reawakening of purpose, connection, and possibility.
On September 13, 2025, the parent organizers of PULSE’s inaugural cohort of the Parent Organizer Project successfully planned and led The State of Equity in Education Town Hall at Rutgers Newark’s Paul Robeson Campus Center. The town hall drew 80 registrations, 65 of whom attended on a Saturday morning. The crowd included parents, community organizers, nonprofit and foundation CEOs, community researchers, activists, creatives, and scholars. In her opening remarks, Danielle Cullars, a parent organizer with PULSE, stated, “Today is a milestone. It marks a moment in our journey. A moment where we bring our learning, our organizing, and our vision into a shared space with all of you. A moment where we say: we are here, we are organized, and we are ready to build stronger public schools for all our children.”
When asked why she has committed herself to organizing parents, cofounder of PULSE and architect of the Parent Organizer Project, Sharon Smith explained, “Newark has a long history of being a city where we collectively struggle against oppressive forces. I noticed over the last few years that our city’s education organizing power had weakened, and given the challenges of K-12 public education in our nation, state, and district, I was compelled to rebuild the pipeline of parent organizers in this great city that I call home.” Part of PULSE’s renewed agenda includes a research component that seeks to understand why there is low parent engagement in Newark Public Schools. Their research agenda is actively underway with Cornwall’s support as a research partner. Utilizing a Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) approach, PULSE POP researchers have been engaging with fellow parents in their school communities to explore and discuss the challenges they and their children face.
The town hall was divided into two parts. The morning session brought together education researchers and policy advocates from several statewide and regional groups, including Peg Kinsell from SPAN Parent Advocacy Network, Danielle Farrie from the Education Law Center, Tyneisha Gibbs from NJSACC–New Jersey’s After School and Out-of-School-Time Professional Network, and Matt Gonzales from Liberation Spaces. The focus of these speakers was on how the federal administration’s funding decisions will affect public education and children’s well-being, and how we could fight back using intergenerational community knowledge as power.
The afternoon sessions were organized by PULSE parent organizers, who led discussions in small groups to talk about the on-the-ground issues that affect children and families, such as school lunches, support for children with special needs (IEPs/504s), bullying, and school nursing capacity. Students from the Rutgers Graduate School – Newark served as note takers for the afternoon sessions. Some of the suggestions captured from those sessions include creating a parent handbook on IEPs/504s, creating a community of parents for children with special needs, and having a toolkit for child health emergencies. With research support from Cornwall, the PULSE POP cohort will continue to work with the information collected in the breakout sessions to support PULSE’s future organizing strategy.
The town hall signaled a resurgence of PULSE’s work at a time when parent advocacy for equity in public schools is sorely needed. When asked about why groups like PULSE and the Parent Organizer Project is important, Charles M. Payne, Director at the Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies stated, “As we face continued assault on public education and other public resources, building our local organizing capacity is one tool of many that we will need to make sure that members of our community don’t fall through the cracks or struggle alone during this difficult time.”
Interested in supporting PULSE or the Parent Organizer Project? Contact Sharon Smith at S.Smith@pulse-nj.com