April 7, 2009

Dear Editor,

I had to respond to your editorial on “Asbury board flunks exam” in Tuesday’s Asbury Park Press. Once again, like your roving reporter, Nancy Shields, your comments are way off base and are “your” opinions only. As Ms. Shields misquoted me in her article (“wishing suspended Superintendent Antonio Lewis was back”), this opinion also has distorted facts. You and Ms. Shields skewed this to make Mr. Cowell look like the “Messiah” himself. For the record, I stated that we are no better off now than when we had Dr. Lewis here. At least he would have saved jobs.

The fact of the matter is that over the past 4 years, my membership in the local Association has dropped from an all time high of nearly 650 members, down to 568 as of last week. Through attrition, the district has managed to cut almost 100 Asbury Park Education Association (APEA) positions. Have you questioned anyone in the Central Office to see how many supervisor positions have been added since this time? If you have a chance, I implore you to go over to 603 Mattison Ave. and see how it looks like a small factory. Once again, they add at the top and layoff people in the trenches.

With these pending layoffs, most of the affected people that I represent not only spent many years working here, but also live in Asbury Park, spend their money in Asbury Park, and send or sent their children to these schools. They are also the people that know most, if not all of the students that they come in contact with throughout the day. A lot of the children that we educate look to the schools as a familiar place and a sense of comfort with the people they know not only as employees, but as neighbors too. As an Association, we have advocated that the district not layoff anyone, but merely do what the state and county have done over time; lose positions through attrition. This is the least painful way where no one gets hurt.

The unfortunate thing with this whole situation is the fact that our Fiscal Monitor, who we can refer to as the “Czar”, doesn’t have the wherewithal to bring all affected parties together to discuss this most important decision. Instead, he used a divide and conquer tactic with the individual building principals to advise them of his cuts. The Czar states that “the staff didn’t have the skills” in one of his comments. His only skill is a slash and burn mentality. Mr. Cowell’s two year stint drinking from the trough is coming to an end shortly, where he will take his cash and move on. Once again, the citizens and children of Asbury Park are here to pick up the pieces. I applaud the Board for standing up to Mr. Mark Cowell and standing up for our children.

Sincerely,

John Napolitani
APEA President

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