In a curious twist of allegiance, the Hoboken school board has appointed a new, young superintendent, Dr. Frank Romano, who will take over the district on July 1. The minority faction of board members Carmelo Garcia, Jim Farina, and Frances Rhodes-Kearns surprisingly sided with Board President Rose Markle and some of her allies – Theresa Minutillo, Ruth McAllister, and new board member Irene Sobolov – to appoint Romano at Tuesday’s meeting.
Board members Maureen Sullivan and Carrie Gilliard – who have in the past had voted in lockstep with Markle and Minutillo – voted against the appointment, claiming it was rushed and that Romano was not the best candidate.
Both Sullivan and Gilliard thought the board should re-open the search to find better candidates, and criticized the selection process and contract negotiation techniques.
“That’s straight out of the machine playbook.” – Maureen Sullivan
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Romano, who is currently the assistant superintendent in Fort Lee, agreed to a three-year contract with an annual salary of $190,000 and guaranteed 3.5 percent pay raise each year.
He replaces Interim Superintendent Peter Carter, who was brought in at the beginning of the school year after the sudden departure of former Superintendent of Schools Jack Raslowsky.
Opposition calls process a ‘circus’
Sullivan and Gilliard both took exception to the hiring Tuesday. They said they were sent a memo over the previous weekend from Minutillo, who chairs the committee handling the superintendent negotiations, stating that the board would not be voting to approve a contract for Romano last Tuesday.
They said the memo said the board would possibly schedule a special meeting to handle the hiring, so Sullivan and Gilliard were surprised to see the board rushing to lock in Romano on Tuesday night.
“It was a circus upstairs [during the closed-session negotiations],” Gilliard said in an interview last week. “They let this guy know that they were willing to give him whatever. He knew he had them. He worked them.”
Gilliard said the board made up its mind about Romano long before the end of the process and weren’t shy about it, ultimately hurting their negotiating stance by openly courting one candidate.
“This is the same reckless behavior of board members before them,” she said. “They jump into bed with the same people they accuse of doing bad things to our district.”
But Minutillo responded that the board planned in September to hire the superintendent at the meeting last Tuesday, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
Gilliard admits that she backed a candidate who missed the application deadline, and asked the board to accept his application later or re-open the search. She said the board gave her no leeway to have this person’s resume submitted after the deadline.
Minutillo questioned why the board should have done so. “We’ve always been about process and fairness,” she said in a later interview. “[Why would we change that] when one of our own teammates wants to bend the rules?”
Without speaking for the rest of the board, Minutillo said she never made up her mind until the end of the search.
Sullivan said the pool of candidates wasn’t large enough to find a highly qualified leader for the schools. She also criticized board members for checking references without looking for “red flags.”
“Most of the members of the board wanted Dr. Romano from the get-go,” she said in an interview.
Sullivan was also displeased that the board excluded her from negotiations with Romano, even though she sits on the committee assigned to handling administrative hirings.
“That’s not the way I thought they were going to do it,” she said. “That’s machine politics. That’s straight out of the machine playbook.”
Why the rush?
Gilliard charged that the board wanted to complete the superintendent search before April school board elections, when Markle will be up for re-election. Farina and Gilliard, whose seats are also both up for election, have said they will not run. Sobolov must also run for re-election after being appointed by the board last year to replace Phil DeFalco, who resigned his seat. Her seat is only a one-year term, completing DeFalco’s original term, while the other three seats are four-year terms.
Minutillo responded that there was no rush and the board would have been willing to start the search over again if the candidates weren’t qualified.
Gilliard said that during the interview process, when she and Sullivan began voicing their concerns, the remaining board majority started courting votes from Garcia, Farina, and Rhodes-Kearns.
But Gilliard believes Garcia and his group needed something in return for their votes, like his choice of one of the candidates on Markle’s re-election ticket.
Minutillo, who is also involved in the re-election campaign, said she had no idea why Garcia and the rest voted in favor of Romano, but said there was no agreement reached whatsoever.
She did admit that Garcia pitched a “fusion” ticket in the past, but that nothing was attached to their votes for Romano.
Leadership change
“I appreciate people’s apprehensions,” Romano, who was not at the meeting, said in an e-mail last week, “but I’ve spent a long time caring about kids and focusing others on caring about kids. I know my business and know how to surround myself with solid educators, conscientious supporters, and appropriate resources.”
Asked about his first priorities on July 1, he said: “For me, they’re both short and long-term. Initially, they take the form of an entry plan that respects good work and considers where people are. The plan includes watching, listening, and learning; establishing healthy relations with both the school and general communities; looking at existing organizational structures; and then filling key leadership positions. Long term, they take the form of a collaboratively designed strategic plan that deals with school programs, student performance, personnel, communications, facilities, and finance.”
He responded to criticism that he is getting paid too much, and that his raises should be performance-based.
“If we look at the Hudson County average,” he said, “my salary lies significantly below that. Three and a half percent is not out of the ordinary for yearly increases. I know superintendents who receive 4 percent and 2 percent on top of that in merit pay.”
He also described his decision-making process for the district.
“Whether making a decision, evaluating a program, or planning for the future,” he said, “I try to do so with my colleagues beside me, with the board behind me, and always picturing one single student in front of me.”
Romano is not related to county Freeholder and police Captain Anthony Romano, who is a former school board trustee.
Timothy J. Carroll may be reached at tcarroll@hudsonreporter.com.
Principal switch at high school
Tuesday night, the Board of Education appointed Albert Joy, a retired principal in Irvington, to finish the year as principal of Hoboken High School.
Unable to find a suitable full-time replacement for Dr. Lorraine Cella, who recently resigned her position, the board relied on a recommendation from Interim Superintendent Peter Carter to hire Joy for the rest of the year.
Board members said Carter had some principal applicants on hand because he advertised for several jobs in the district in October before jobs were even available.
Meanwhile, Cella was escorted from her office on Friday, according to sources, as district employees stood by waiting for her to leave the premises. Cella was visably upset, according to sources, and felt that she had been pushed out the district by Carter.
One source said that while schools were closed for two days during the blizzard, school employees removed the hard drive from Cella’s computer. – TJC