In-Depth Discussions About Selecting New Schools Superintendent To Begin In February

Board of Education member Delvin Burton wanted to know if the district would have a new schools Superintendent by next school year.

The first real discussion among Board of Education members about selecting a new schools Superintendent will be held at the February work session.

That’s not to say the board hasn’t already talked about it, albeit haltingly. At the Jan. 23 work session, several board members peppered board president Julia Presley with questions about the selection process, and also questioned why the board’s personnel committee needs to be involved.

The 2013 school board late last year voted to not offer current Superintendent Edward Seto a new contract when his expires at the end of June. The effort was led by Presley and board vice president Eva Nagy.

Now, with only about five months left in Seto’s contract – if he stays the entire time – the board needs to start deciding how its going to go about picking his replacement.

The matter would not have been discussed at all on Jan. 23, had not board member Delvin Burton asked that it be added to the work session agenda. Burton said he wanted to make sure the district had a full-time superintendent in place for the next school year.

But, he said, the board has yet to set a “course of action” to guide it through the search process.

Board member Christine Danielsen asked if all discussions about the next superintendent would be held solely among the three-member personnel committee.

“No,” Presley told her. “But it is a discussion that when it comes out of the committee, it will come before the board.”

“There is a process that needs to be followed,” she said.

Board member Nancy LaCorte – who was one of the board members who hired Seto – asked why it has taken so long for the issue to even come up. Nagy told her that the board had to wait until after the new members – LaCorte and Danielsen – were sworn in to start the ball rolling.

Presley told LaCorte that the board has received materials from the New Jersey School Boards Association, and that the board would discuss that material at the February work session.

Presley said the selection process would be open.

“The public will be involved,” she said. “It’s not a personnel committee decision, it’s a board and community decision, in terms of information coming in and being discussed.”

“Are we looking an an interim superintendent,” in addition to hiring a permanent superintendent, LaCorte asked.

“Yes, we are,” Presley said. “That will be discussed at the next work session as well.”

She said the board members would receive the NJSBA information prior to the February meeting.

Burton asked if the board would have a new superintendent “by July 1, August 1, September 1?”

“That remains to be seen,” Presley said. “I hope it will. There’s just not a whole lot I can say right now.”

LaCorte said she thought the discussion and decisions affecting the new superintendent should be made by the board as a whole, rather than from recommendations from the personnel committee.

“This is a discussion that should be taking place in the public,” she said.

“The personnel committee is in place to handle personnel matters, this is a personnel matter,” Presley said. “There will be recommendations coming to the full board, you’ll get the full information, and out of that will come some recommendations from things that have already been discussed.”

“The personnel committee won’t have any information that’s not given to the full board,” Nagy said. “The board will decide whether various things will happen.”

When asked again why it had taken so long to even begin talking about the process, Presley said, “There were certain things we couldn’t talk about, now we can.”

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