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Paterson parents protest middle school model at Board of Education
Parents and students upset over the district’s middle school model march in protest to the Paterson Board of Education, Wednesday, Apr. 2, 2025.
- School board president Eddie Gonzalez said Magda O’Keefe’s contributions in helping Paterson’s Latino residents were unmatched.
PATERSON — School 24 will be renamed after Maria Magda O’Keefe, who served on Paterson’s City Council from 1984 to 2000.
Magda O’Keefe went into politics after owning and operating a popular beauty salon in Paterson’s 5th Ward. Near the end of her time on the council, she opened the Hispanic Multipurpose Service Center, a nonprofit organization that officials say assisted tens of thousands of people over the years, providing food, job training, child care and other programs.
The Paterson Board of Education voted to name the school after her at its meeting on May 14.
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School board president Eddie Gonzalez said Magda O’Keefe’s contributions in helping Paterson’s Latino residents were unmatched.
“Maria’s desire to make a difference in Paterson transcended all communities and she provided assistance to anyone who needed it,” Gonzalez said.
“I’m enormously pleased that generations of students will go to school in a building named for Maria Magda O’Keefe, and understand, as I do, that her example of public service is something we should all strive for,” Gonzalez said.
Magda O’Keefe died in 2020.
