HOBOKEN – Hoboken High School’s popular theater director, who helped resurrect the program 15 years ago and has led the students to several awards, resigned suddenly this week. She told a local news website that she is leaving due to an “ongoing sort of harassment ever since [former Superintendent Peter] Carter was here.”
Carter’s interim stint ended March 8, but apparently Ohaus was still upset.
“I can’t take it any more,” Ohaus told the website.
This morning, Board of Education member Carmelo Garcia issued a statement calling into question the actions of two school board members who are not allied with him on the board.
While specifics of the departure are not clear, the press release from Garcia says that the two board members were “pushing for the disciplining of [Ohaus]” for allowing students from charter schools to participate in the play “Hairspray.”
The charter schools are considered public schools, but they were founded by parents and educators rather than by government entities.
“It is clear by the overstepping behavior of KidsFirst members that their number one priority is power not the students, it is the systematic dismantling of the educational pillars in our community,” Garcia claimed in the release. “This is just another in the long line of egregious actions taken to bully and mistreat one of the treasures of not only our district, but our entire community.”
Garcia is up for re-election on April 27, running against the Kids First slate.
In the report on the local website, board member Rose Marie Markle denies wrongdoing, saying nobody forced the director out, and that the decision came as “a shock.”