Newark Superintendent Sets Record Straight About Booster Club Lawsuit

A dispute between two mothers is draining the Newark Memorial High School Athletic Department's coffers and causing controversy in the community. We’ve had a lot of information put in the comments of the last article Patch published about this situation. Not all of the things in the comments section are accurate.

I talked to Newark Unified School District’s Superintendent Dr. Dave Marken on Friday morning to set the record straight about a few things.

Patch: Is Newark Unified School District auditing the Athletic Booster Club’s financial documents?

Superintendent Marken: No. What we offered to do is to take the information and give it to an independent auditor. We never had any intention of personally auditing the Booster Club’s financial documents. The independent auditor hesitated to do the audit, because it is a non-profit organization…That would be like asking us to audit the March of Dimes. The school district is limited on what kind of action we can take. We can’t control what the Booster Club does. The only thing that the school board and the district can legally do is to sever ties with the Booster Club or to encourage action. 

Patch: What action would you recommend here?

Superintendent Marken: At this point, there’s no reason for this lawsuit to continue. We understand that people’s feelings were obviously hurt, and that they feel attacked… It’s become such a personal issue that’s gone on for years. We need to put the thing to rest. We have the bigger issue of doing what is in the best interests of our students. We need to have open nominations for the open positions in the club, and then use procedures of a democratic society to fill those seats, such as elections that are done in an open and transparent manner. We need to be able to stand up here and say this is what we are doing. Everything needs to be put online. The financial documents, the by laws, everything should be public.