The Hoboken Board of Education spent close to five hours in closed session last week, reviewing applications for the new superintendent of schools.
According to current Superintendent Patrick Gagliardi, the board stayed until well past 11 p.m., reviewing over 30 applications from a candidate pool, which he said is of high caliber.
“There’s potentially a large group that, at least on paper, meets a high standard,” Gagliardi said last week. “At this point, they all fit us reasonably well.”
The Hoboken school district includes a high school, two middle schools, six primary schools and two publicly-funded charter schools.
Board Secretary David Anthony added that 13 applicants have doctorate degrees, and three are from Hoboken.
The rest are mostly from the New Jersey/New York area.
But some say that the board will not be looking too far for their new superintendent.
Former Board President John Raslowsky II, a Hoboken resident who for 11 years was principal of the respected St. Peter’s Preparatory School in Jersey City, has been rumored to be on the short list to replace Gagliardi for well over a year.
“People would be very shocked if Jack Raslowsky didn’t get the job,” said Hoboken resident Maureen Sullivan, a parent of two children at the Wallace Primary School, after last week’s school board meeting.
Sullivan said that one reason she believes Raslowsky will get the job is because of the way he came onto the local school board scene.
“He was put on the board to fill an unexpired term,” she said. “He came out of nowhere. Then immediately afterward he was president of the board. It just seemed as if it had been in the works for a very long time.”
Last week Raslowsky confirmed that he did submit an application, but he denied that he was a front-runner.
“I submitted the paperwork,” he said. “Where that is in the midst of things, I don’t know,” he said.
He also confirmed that he stepped down from the board last August “in anticipation of possibly being an applicant for the superintendent position.”
New job
Raslowsky served as the principal of St. Peter’s Preparatory School for 11 years. He was then 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.
He said he doesn’t think that he is the most favored candidate.
“I would bring a certain skill set to the position,” said Raslowsky. “The board has to make the decision if my skill set is the one that best serves the district.”
The process to look for a new superintendent has involved the district’s time and money. The private New Jersey School Boards Association has been coordinating the search for Hoboken, a task that cost the board $5,000, according to Anthony.
Anthony denied last week that the board had already made a decision.
“I don’t believe the person has already been chosen,” he said. “Why would we go through the process? In the end, it’s whoever impresses the board the most and gets five votes.”
He mentioned that one of the board’s most important function is to choose a superintendent.
“This is not one of those decisions to be taken lightly,” he said.
Looking at all applicants
Gagliardi echoed Anthony in an interview later in the week.
“I think the board is pretty well open [to looking at all applicants] now,” he said. “They are spending an awful lot of time and energy on this. They all seem to be very sincere in looking at every resume. I didn’t detect anyone having an advantage over anyone else.”
But Sullivan said she has been skeptical about the validity of the superintendent search ever since the board decided to shorten the process. Originally, they were going to look at candidates for the next few months.
“It’s less transparent and less open,” she said.
When’s the public forum?
Sullivan came to last week’s meeting to ask the board if a date had been set for an open public forum with the two finalists for superintendent.
She said that a forum was the only way the public could be involved in the search.
NJSBA representative Cathie Sousa, who is coordinating the search, said that the NJSBA never sets a date for the forums without consulting with finalists, whom, at this point, have not yet been selected.
“Procedurally, we never set a date,” she said in response to Sullivan’s comment at the meeting. “You can target a date, but there’s not a guarantee.”
The Board of Education will begin to conduct first-round interviews of superintendent semi-finalists on Monday, Feb. 12.
Comments on this piece can be sent to mfriedman@hudsonreporter.com