The fate of a Secaucus Board of Education employee who has been under a cloud of suspicion for months could ultimately rest with the office of the New Jersey Commissioner of Education.
That office will likely decide whether the Secaucus School District can terminate Natalizia Aljallad for a host of charges, that she denies, including alleged sexual harassment, allegedly making false statements to a police officer, and making slanderous statements against two Board of Education trustees.
Aljallad, a tenured administrative assistant at the Board of Education office on Centre Avenue who was suspended with pay three months ago, was notified in a hand-delivered letter dated April 14 that the district will move to fire her. The board’s business administrator, Edward Walkiewicz, personally delivered the letter to Aljallad’s Second Street home, according to a source.
The letter came just weeks after the Office of the Hudson County Prosecutor dismissed a criminal complaint against Aljallad based on the same evidence now being used to terminate her. On March 30, Assistant Prosecutor Patrick Sharkey “administratively dismissed” pending criminal charges against Aljallad, according to a document from the Prosecutor’s Office.
Aljallad has 15 days to respond to the charges.
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Strange allegations
According to sworn affidavits, the charges against Aljallad stem from strange allegations.
Aljallad contends that she had a conversation with a police officer assigned to Secaucus High School last December in order to help him out, but school authorities maintain that she told the officer that two board members asked her to see if she could try to seduce him.
Specifics
In a signed affidavit dated April 14, Schools Superintendent Cynthia Randina wrote that, “Aljallad determined to conduct a personal investigation of [the police officer] to see if he was capable of appropriately interacting with female students.”
Aljallad said she actually approached the officer to warn him that rumors had been circulating about how he allegedly looked at some students.
“I didn’t know if the rumors were true, which is why I didn’t want to tell the superintendent,” Aljallad said last week. “I didn’t want to get him in trouble if the rumors weren’t true. I wanted to tell him [directly] so he could be more careful.”
But the officer and school administrators took a different view.
A setup for seduction?
In her affidavit obtained by the Reporter, Randina stated: “In January 2010, I became aware that an investigation report had been filed by [the police officer] in December 2009…[the officer] reported that Aljallad stated [that] two members of the board directed her to befriend [him], meet with him once a week, and have lunch with him to see if he would engage Aljallad in inappropriate behaviors.”
Michael Makarski and Frank Trombetta, the two board members whose names allegedly came up in the officer’s conversations with Aljallad, “denied any involvement in the matter” when they were interviewed by Randina and Walkiewicz, according to the superintendent’s affidavit.
But Aljallad said last week that she never mentioned Makarski or Trombetta to the officer and that it was the other way around.
“He asked me who had told me the rumors [about him],” she said. “I didn’t tell him, but he asked whether it was them. He could sense they didn’t like him and he felt they treated him [coldly].”
Her alleged reference to Makarski and Trombetta are at the heart of the charges that she made slanderous statements against two board members. The alleged sexual harassment charge is connected to her interaction with the officer.
It is not clear what would motivate the two trustees to get involved, rumors have suggested that they did not want him assigned to the high school.
Investigation
Randina and Walkiewicz began investigating Aljallad’s alleged contact with the officer in January and conducted interviews with Aljallad, Makarski, Trombetta, and the officer’s wife on Jan. 21, according to sworn statements.
The two also reviewed a handful of e-mails between the officer and Aljallad, again, according to the superintendent’s affidavit.
Based on the interviews and e-mails, Randina “recommended that the board suspend Aljallad with pay pending receipt of a comprehensive psychological evaluation,” according to Randina’s affidavit.
Aljallad was suspended on Jan. 21.
Aljallad said she is currently suspended without pay and received her last paycheck on April 15.
In his own affidavit, dated April 14, Walkiewicz stated that, “It is my opinion that the charges [against Aljallad], and the evidence in support of the charges, are sufficient, if true in fact, to warrant the dismissal of [Aljallad] from her employment with the board…”
Walkiewicz, who handles personnel questions for the Board of Education, did not return phone calls by press time.
Taking toll on sons
Aljallad and her attorney, Feintuch, now have 15 days to respond to the charges.
Once they’ve responded, the Board of Ed will have 45 days to either dismiss or reinstate Aljallad. If the board votes to fire her, the matter will go to Trenton for a final decision.
The two members named in the allegations would likely have to recuse themselves.
Feintuch and his client said they didn’t know whether the board had other underlying reasons for terminating her.
In the meantime, Aljallad, who has lived in Secaucus for 33 years and went through a divorce in February, is trying to keep life as normal as possible for her two children, ages 9 and 5. Most difficult, she said, is her diminished role in their school activities.
“Since all of this happened, I haven’t been allowed on school property. I’ve been banned from the grounds,” said the mother of two boys. “I can’t even go to Clarendon, where my sons attends school.”
A neighbor now walks the older son to Clarendon instead of Aljallad. She still drives her younger son to pre-kindergarten, but Aljallad’s own mother must escort him into the building.
She has missed Market Day, she said, the Science Fair, and other school events.
“I can see how all of this has taken a toll on them, especially my older son,” she said.
For the time being, she has also had to give up being second vice president of her PTA, since the organization’s meetings are held in school building she can’t enter.
The case may also affect her custody rights, she said, as her former husband has threatened to fight for custody of the children because of the allegations.
E-mail E. Assata Wright at awright@hudsonreporter.com.