Amidst complicated political dynamics, and subtle and overt power struggles, the current goings on at the Board of Education can best be summed up in one word – change.
These changes include: the announcement of the superintendent of schools’ retirement in two years, the possible resignation of an elected school board member who hopes to get a job as the paid board secretary, and the hiring of two new assistant business administrators, each making around $100,000.
With this upheaval has come significant political friction and personal animosity, which has lead to board members walking out of meetings, booming yelling matches behind the doors of closed sessions, and even a board member breaking his hand.
Retirement of superintendent
The most important item on Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting was the announcement of the retirement of Superintendent of Schools Patrick Gagliardi, who has been at the post since 1998 and a Hoboken educator for 43 years. According the resolution the board passed, the retirement will be effective two years from now.
But is Gagliardi’s announcement of his own volition?
Not entirely, according to sources within City Hall and the school board. Mayor David Roberts has been pushing behind the scenes to move the district in a different direction, one that doesn’t feature Gagliardi. Roberts made improving the public school system one of the highlights of his campaign platform earlier this year. He has said that changes are needed to raise the bar in the city’s public schools.
While progress has been made in standardized test scores and student performance, Hoboken is still very much in the middle of the pack in the state when comes to student performance. Hoboken is also below average when it comes to SAT scores. Roberts has acknowledged the improvements but has worried that they have not happened quickly enough.
A big contract
But there are several major problems even if the entire board wanted a change in leadership. The first is that Gagliardi is a savvy political player, with a good deal of local clout and support. Secondly, there is the matter of his contract. Just last year the board approved a contract extension through 2009. To buy out his entire contract today could cost the district upwards of $750,000.
So the plan agreed upon was for Gagliardi to retire in two years, and the final two years of his contract would be bought out. The final numbers of that buyout are still being worked out, but it will likely cost several hundred thousand dollars, according to city officials.
Roberts added that he was sensitive about how much a possible buyout might cost taxpayers. “I thank Mr. Gagliardi for his years of service as superintendent and wish him well in the future,” Roberts said Thursday. “I truly hope that his potential compensation package is appropriate and that if the Board of Education should deem it excessive, that appropriate measures be taken to protect our taxpayers.”
Also, while the retirement will be official two years from now, sources inside the School Board have hinted that Gagliardi might step down earlier, maybe even before the 2006-2007 school year.
Saving face
In many ways, it’s an arrangement that works for all parties. By announcing the retirement now, Roberts is able to say that he is being proactive and making changes in the public schools. But making it two years from now shows respect for Gagliardi and indicates that he is going out when he wants and on his own terms.
Tuesday night, the school board put a positive spin on the move and thanked Gagliardi for his dedication. School Board President Carmelo Garcia said that Gagliardi was responsible for many accomplishments during his tenure, including hiring a qualified and energetic teaching staff and bettering test scores.
“He continually met the challenges of educating an exceptionally diverse student population,” Garcia said. “We all know the superintendent’s heart is always in the right place when it comes to improving the quality of education.”
Gagliardi said he has always enjoyed his time educating Hoboken’s children.
“It’s been a pleasure for 43 years,” he said. “I’ve always loved coming to work and I still do, but it’s time for me to move on and have new leadership for this district that is ready to move forward.”
The succession process
So, assuming the retirement happens, who might be the next superintendent?
The Board of Education will have to begin a search process, but for now the leading candidate is rumored to be School Board member Jack Raslowsky.
The Harvard-educated Raslowsky is a longtime educator. After serving as the principal of St. Peter’s Preparatory School for 11 years, Raslowsky was appointed the provincial assistant for Education and Lay Formation of the New York Province Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. In this role, he oversees the work of the seven Jesuit high schools and five middle schools in New York and New Jersey and sits on the Board of Trustees of each institution.
The upside for Raslowsky is that he has all the necessary educational qualifications and a sterling reputation, and, maybe just as importantly, he is liked and respected by all factions on the board. He also has a solid relationship with the Roberts administration, and ran on Roberts’ ticket last spring.
Raslowsky said Wednesday afternoon that rumors of his candidacy are premature. “Right now we have a superintendent who has a job to do,” Raslowsky said. “To initiate a great deal of public discussion at this point would undercut the job he has to do this year.” Raslowsky said that in the future, when a search is undertaken, he will be willing to have a discussion about the job.
“They know where to find me,” he said.
Garcia v. Anthony
But the debate over the superintendent’s retirement was only part of possible changes at the Board of Education.
Another fascinating move that arose this week was a proposal for board member David Anthony to resign from his board position to take a paid position as board secretary for around $48,000. Replacing Anthony on the board would likely be Ron Rosenberg, who recently ran unsuccessfully for the Hoboken City Council on the ticket of Frank Raia, who is also on the Board of Education. With 12 years on the board, Anthony is the second-longest tenured member. His supporters said that he would make a good secretary because he knows that district inside and out, and while he was board president for eight years there wasn’t a single tax increase.
His detractors say that the job is an unwarranted political payback for his recent support of Roberts’ reelection.
The move has come with a great deal of controversy, and on Monday the issue turned ugly. While at City Hall discussing all of the proposed moves at the Board of Education, an argument broke out between Anthony and Garcia, who also is employed as the city’s director of Human Services. The exact cause of the argument is somewhat uncertain, but according to sources in City Hall, Garcia didn’t want to put Anthony’s hiring on the board’s agenda, which essentially meant that he withdrew his support for hiring Anthony.
The loud argument reached a frenzied pitch, and Garcia left the confrontation with broken right hand from allegedly punching a door out of anger. He was taken to a local hospital where his hand was placed in a large cast, which he still wore at Tuesday night’s meeting.
At the meeting
That took events up to Tuesday night. There was nothing on the agenda about either Anthony’s resignation or for him to be hired as board secretary. During the new business portion of the meeting there was an effort by Anthony’s supporters on the board to address those two issues. But Garcia said that, under the board by-laws, only the board president and superintendent have the authority to place new items on the agenda during a meeting. The board went into closed session to discuss the board’s bylaws.
During the closed session, the sounds of loud yelling and arguing emanated from the room. After about 45 minutes, board members Jack Raslowsky and Maggie Porrata left the meeting and went home. Raslowsky indicated that the discussion had deteriorated to the point that the meeting was no longer constructive.
About 10 minutes later, Garcia came out of the room, visibly upset. He said that Raia, Theresa Burns and Anthony were trying to push through a “hidden agenda.” He said that Anthony should not have been participating in the discussion about a job that he might be hired for.
He added that Raia and Burns’ “hidden agenda” was that they wanted Rosenberg, who ran with them in May, to be named to the board.
“But they aren’t going to force me into anything,” Garcia said. “I’m going to do what’s right for this community. If they want to do this, they need to do it legitimately, not in this haphazard and reckless manner.”
Garcia said that it was disrespectful to not follow the proper procedure, and then he left the building and went home.
The remaining five board members still had a quorum but couldn’t take action because for Anthony to be hired as board secretary he would have to resign. If he resigned then, there would only be four members present, thus no longer a quorum. They appointed Anthony as the district’s unpaid secretary, and they scheduled a special meeting for this Tuesday at 6 p.m. at 1115 Clinton St. At that meeting, a vote will likely be taken for Anthony’s hiring to the paid position. Anthony said after the meeting that he does not have any hidden agenda, and he added that his experience on the board for more than a decade, and eight years as board president, make him uniquely qualified to become board secretary.
A Pope in the schools
In another notable move, the board hired former longtime school board member John Pope as its assistant business administrator at $95,000 per year. In addition to being a former board member, Pope has two decades of experience as an executive at Lucent Technology in the private sector. The board also hired Tammy Zucca as assistant business administrator for $110,000. Both Pope and Zucca will be charged with getting the school district’s books in order.
The person who currently holds the title of business administrator is Anthony Curko, who hasn’t been working for the past several months. He is currently using up his remaining sick and vacation days, and will likely retire when they are used up.
That means that currently there are three business administrators or assistant business administrators, each drawing salaries of over $100,000 per year.
When Curko officially submits his retirement papers, it is expected that Pope or Zucca will be considered to become a candidate for business administrator. But both Pope and Zucca would have to become a certified business administrator before that could happen.
The hiring of Pope also has some interesting political connotations. Pope is currently a friend and supporter of Councilman Michael Russo, and before him a supporter of his father, Mayor Anthony Russo. The fact that Roberts now supports the hiring of Pope could be seen as thanks for Michael Russo supporting Roberts in the June runoff.