A New Jersey grand jury has dismissed charges against a high school principal accused of endangering a student in a racially charged case that has roiled the liberal, diverse towns of South Orange and Maplewood.
The manager, Frank Sanchez, 50, remains in professional limbo. In May, with the charges hanging over him, the district did not renew his contract. remains on paid administrative leave, which expires this month. He plans to appeal the school board’s decision and ask it to reappoint him.
“This was a difficult time in my life,” Mr. Sanchez said on Thursday. “Being an educator defined me for a long time and not being able to do that for several months was extremely difficult. There were days when it was dark.”
The school district’s acting superintendent, Dr. Kevin F. Gilbert, called the grand jury’s decision “welcome news for the many families and students who look forward to welcoming Frank Sanchez back to Columbia High School.”
The case has divided the school district, which has a longstanding achievement gap between white and black students, despite years of civil rights lawsuits and programs to address disparities.
The student who accused Mr. Sanchez is no longer at the school. Since Mr. Sanchez’s arrest in March, he has had to live in the city amid lawn signs supporting Mr. Sanchez as well as parent rallies behind him.
Mr Sanchez said he felt empathy for the student and what she had been through. “She’s as much a victim as I am of the adults who created all this attention,” she said. “These were the adults in town doing things.”
The student did not respond to a request for comment. A local organization representing her, the Black Parents Workshop, said in a statement that despite the grand jury’s decision, “we believe he abused his power and violated this student’s trust” and suggested she may seek civil damages against him. Mr. Sanchez.
The case involved a confrontation in the lobby of Columbia High School in Maplewood last March when Mr. Sanchez put his body in front of the student, who he believed was headed for a confrontation with classmates. The interaction, which lasted less than a minute and included physical contact, was captured — partially — on hallway security video.
The girl, who is Black, filed an affirmative action against Mr. Sanchez, who is white and Latino. A school board member, with whom Mr. Sanchez had clashed in the past, shared the complaint and preliminary results of an investigation with local police, which led to his arrest.
Parents, students and some teachers rallied to support him, speaking at school board meetings, raising more than $70,000 for his legal fees and sending more than 1,000 postcards to the prosecutor’s office, urging her to drop the case. Some characterized the complaint against him as a vendetta by a small group that opposed his hiring and policies.
Walter Fields, who founded the Black Parents Workshop and now lives in Maryland, said the support for Mr. Sanchez was indicative of deeper problems in the region.
“This is not a community that has a history of supporting black children,” Mr. Fields said. “And so he can raise tens of thousands of dollars to defend an adult accused of convicting a student.
“You can’t show much concern for a schoolgirl you’re hurting by putting signs on the lawns of people who support the adult accused of hitting her. Did anyone raise money for the student? No.”
After the grand jury’s decision, Mia Charlene White, a parent who helped support Mr. Sanchez, said the stress of the past few months had been overwhelming.
“Watching how Frank and his family suffered through this unfair, ridiculous, baseless witch hunt,” said Ms. White, who is black and Korean. She laments that “people have misconstrued our support for Frank as if we don’t understand the ongoing challenges in our public schools and particularly in advocating for black students.”
Mr. Sanchez said that at Wednesday’s grand jury hearing, he recounted school security footage of the confrontation and described what he said were days of threats by the student against her classmates. In the end, he said, “I think the jury understood that, as a principal, you have to make split-second decisions like that when you’re balancing the safety of the students and that it doesn’t really belong in a criminal court.”
Although he said he was relieved to be cleared of endangering a minor, he still faces a lesser charge of simple assault, which is a disorderly persons offense and is not subject to the jurisdiction of a grand jury. The prosecutor’s office said in a statement that it “will be examined at a date to be determined.”
Since his arrest, Mr. Sanchez has not been allowed to contact teachers or administrators at the school.
And she may still face a civil lawsuit from lawyers at the Black Parents Workshop, according to Mr. Fields. “We never considered the grand jury as a final step,” Mr. Fields said.
