This is a letter to the editors of the Asbury Park Press, here is a link to the article:

In response to the May 12 article regarding the Asbury Park Board of Education offices (“Asbury’s office decision questioned”), let me clarify a few points that were not written.

The board has people “bamboozled” into thinking that there is a required cost to renovate this building in the amount of $1.6 million to $2 million.

For the record, the Early Childhood Department and the Child Study Team have been working in that building for this entire school year at a renovation nowhere near the figure that was stated for the board move. The Alternative School is slated to move into that building this September.

I toured the second and third floor of that building to see the preparation made to have this building up to specifications. Those two floors never looked better. The staff did an outstanding job of preparation, only to be told that the board will not be moving there.

Here are a few questions that need to be answered:

• Why an exorbitant cost of $1.6 million?
• If our neighbors in Ocean Township can utilize an older school building for their central office, why isn’t it good enough for Asbury Park, when they have cut union staff for five years now?
• Why do they need to be on Mattison Avenue, the farthest point from the majority of the schools within the district?

This is an article from the Asbury Park Sun, here is a link to the article:

Sides with superintendent on approving full list of recommended rehires

By Molly Mulshine

State fiscal monitor Lester Richens has overruled the board of education and re-appointed all tenured and non-tenured faculty and administrators in the school district as recommended by the superintendent.

“Please be advised that I am overriding the vote of the Asbury Park Board of Education on resolution number 1 on page B1 that appeared on the board agenda on May 9,” Richens said in an email today. “By this action, I am approving the reappointment list as recommended by the superintendent.”

A more detailed memo on Richens’s reasons for overruling the decision will follow, he said in the email.

At the board of education meeting on May 9, the board was one vote shy of approving the renewal list, which had been recommended by Superintendent Denise Lowe. Richens had said he would issue his decision today on whether to overrule that vote.

Board member Angela Ahbez-Anderson had moved to table the vote on four people on the list — two tenured, two non-tenured — until a future meeting so they could be voted on separately. This motion did not garner enough votes to pass, so those four staff members will be renewed.

The re-appointment list contains tenured and non-tenured teachers and administrators in the district, although the list has not been made public. At a recent meeting, employees on the list were identified by numbers instead of their names. For the full story on the vote Wednesday night, click here.

This is an article from the Asbury Park Sun, here is a link to the article:

Lester Richens will decide by tomorrow whether to renew teacher, administrator contracts

By Molly Mulshine

After the Asbury Park Board of Education failed to renew teacher and administrator contracts for the 2012-2013 school year, the decision is in state fiscal monitor Lester Richens’s hands.

The contract renewal was up for a vote at last night’s board of education meeting. Board members were unable to publicly discuss the contracts in detail because this qualifies as a personnel matter, which is only to be discussed in private executive session.

Those employees whose names were not on the renewal list are effectively terminated. The superintendent is required to notify them by May 15 that their contracts have not been renewed, said board attorney Michael Gross. If they are not notified by that date, they “will be deemed to be renewed on May 16 whether the board acts or not,” he said.

Board member Angela Ahbez-Anderson moved that two tenured employees and two non-tenured employees be removed from the contract renewal list and tabled until a future meeting. Those employees’ names were not disclosed. After a vote, this motion did not carry.

Only four board members voted to approve the renewal list, while two abstained. Because passage requires five votes, the motion did not carry.

State fiscal monitor Richens then spoke up, saying he has the authority to overrule the board on this matter and would give the board a decision by Friday.

Richens could not immediately be reached for comment.

This is an article from the Asbury Park Press, here is a link to the article:

ASBURY PARK — State education officials have extended Lester Richens’ job as fiscal monitor overseeing city school district finances for two years.

Richens started in the district in late May and signed on initially to work for six months through November. He also is the state fiscal monitor for the Garfield School District and works alternating two- and three-day weeks in Asbury Park at $600 a day.

The state has assigned a fiscal monitor to the district since 2007; he has virtual control over all spending, hiring and firing decisions. The difference now is that the three monitors before Richens worked full time in Asbury Park.

Richens, who is 65 and lives in Neptune, was superintendent of the Belmar School District for more than three decades and, after retiring in 2007, got a state job as the Burlington County executive superintendent of schools.

During his tenure in Asbury Park, Richens used his power to allow district officials to move forward with a new school configuration and educational initiatives when a divided school board was unable to work together to carry out its own duties.

A previous majority on the school board under Remond Palmer fought both Richens and the power the state is exerting over the local board but lost that battle.

This is an article from the Asbury Park Press, here is a link to the article:

ASBURY PARK — An administrative law judge has refused to back Asbury Park school board president Remond Palmer and his board majority who are trying for reasons not yet clear to remove school board administrator Corey Lowell from her job before she gets tenure in August.

Judge John Schuster III earlier this month denied a petition for emergent relief from the board to get Lowell out while a court case proceeds.

The board is going after the state fiscal monitor Lester Richens who used his powers over district finances to overturn the board’s refusal to renew Lowell’s contract in late May.

Richens contended, and the judge cited him in the decision, that Richens had reviewed various audits and evaluations and “confirmed her exceptional performance as business administrator.”

Palmer, who took over as president this spring, brought in new lawyers —Schwartz Simon Edelstein and Celso — who are assisting the board in challenging the state Department of Education’s legal power to oversee Asbury Park school district finances including hiring and firing.

Why Palmer was determined to get Lowell out before she gets tenure Aug. 26 after serving for three years remains unclear. The board in the court papers contends the current state audit had some continuing negatives and argues the simple fact that the state continues to have a monitor in the district at all is a reason for Lowell to go.

This is an article from the Asbury Park Press, here is a link to the article:

LAKEWOOD — – The Lakewood School District has received notification that it will receive a federal School Improvement Grant – worth about $6 million over three years, said Michael I. Inzelbuch, school board attorney.

The money is part of $11.6 million given to New Jersey from the federal government. School districts were awarded money competitively based on compliance to a strict set of guidelines.

When announcing the application process during a board meeting in the spring, district Superintendent Lydia Silva said the money would be used to help turn Lakewood High School around and improve the graduation rate, which was 37.6 percent for the 2009-2010 school year. The monies will be used for new technology in the classrooms, educational tools for students and teacher professional development programs, Silva said.

“When a school continues to perform in the bottom five percent of the state and isn’t showing signs of progress or has graduation rates below 60 percent over a number of years, something dramatic needs to be done,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in an April news release.

In 2010, the federal government provided $546 million in SIG funds to turn around the lowest performing schools, according to the release.

The Lakewood School District received notification July 15 to send three administrative representatives to a two-week daily seminar in Jamesburg that will prepare them for the regulations and stipulations regarding the funding, Inzelbuch said.

This is an article from the Asbury Park Press Website, here is a link to the article:

ASBURY PARK — School board president Remond Palmer and his board majority are seeking to reverse the former state fiscal monitor’s action to close the Barack Obama Elementary School, a March action now well underway to consolidate the district’s declining elementary enrollment in the two newest schools, Thurgood Marshall and Bradley Elementary.

By a vote of 5 to 4, the board directed new lawyer Alan Schnirman to find the most effective way to reverse the closure.

But Lester Richens, the newest fiscal monitor assigned by the state, who attended his first meeting Wednesday night and is replacing Bruce Rodman, told the board members there was not money in the budget to reverse the March action and reopen the school for the fall.

He said if the board was going to pursue that step, they should first get a ceiling on the cost.

“If you pursue litigation, it would become a very costly item in the future,” Richens said. “I suggest you and the attorney and superintendent come up with a ceiling on costs.”

Richens said the board should first get an estimate of the costs from Schnirman before he investigates the board’s options. Schnirman could come back to the next board meeting on June 8 and the public could be told what the projected cost would be.

Schnirman warned there was a fast-approaching deadline to take legal action and also said his legal expenses were capped on an annual basis.

This is an article from the Asbury Park Press Website, here is a link to the article:

ASBURY PARK — Lester Richens, the retired Belmar school superintendent who has served in state education posts since retiring in 2007, will be the next state fiscal monitor overseeing the Asbury Park school district finances, starting May 24.

Richens, who is 64 and lives in Neptune, retired from the Belmar elementary district in 2007 after being the superintendent for more than three decades.

He led a legal fight by Belmar in the late 1980s, along with other sending districts to Asbury Park High School, to end the law that assigned part of Belmar’s high school population to go to Asbury.

The sending districts lost those decisions in part because it meant that Asbury Park High School would become increasingly segregated, with virtually no white students.

In the end, however, that is what happened, because parents, citing Asbury’s poor performing schools, sent their children to private school or moved elsewhere.

Richens is signed on to work as fiscal monitor for six months, until Nov. 24. He most recently served as the Burlington County executive superintendent of schools and is currently a state monitor for the Garfield City school district, Nakell Williams, spokeswoman for the Asbury Park school district, said Wednesday.

Richens is expected to work fewer days a week than the current monitor, Bruce Rodman, who is retiring, but has worked full-time in the Asbury Park post.

The state has assigned a fiscal monitor to the district since 2007 and has virtual control over all spending, hiring and firing decisions.

This is an article from the Asbury Park Press Website, here is a link to the article:

ASBURY PARK — New school board president Remond Palmer finally got the law firm he has wanted in place Wednesday night. Alan J. Schnirman of Schwartz Simon Edelstein Celso of Morristown was back in the seat he gave up to lawyer Michael Gross of Red Bank in 2009.

State fiscal monitor Bruce Rodman, who has the final say on finances and hiring and firing in the district, had held off earlier attempts by Palmer to change law firms, saying it was premature at that time.

Schnirman guided the board in the 2006 removal of former superintendent Antonio Lewis, who was knocked out of that job but through litigation won his right to a job as a district principal. He currently is the principal of the city middle school.

The school board has been deeply divided in recent months as power shifted to Palmer, a former board president removed by the state on an ethics charge, who was elected again last year.

Palmer’s refusal to back Superintendent Denise Lowe on several educational initiatives fostered concern in the community that Palmer would attempt to fire Lowe.

“It seems to me we’re doing the same old thing we did when we got rid of our last superintendent,” the Rev. John Bradley, president of the Asbury Park Neptune Ministerial Alliance, told the board Wednesday. “We have the same player, got the same lawyer as before. I think the president of the board is leading us into a destructive district again. … The district doesn’t belong to you.

This is an article from the Asbury Park Press Website, here is a link to the article:

ASBURY PARK — The Board of Education saw two incumbents and two new members sworn in Wednesday night at a meeting dominated by a noticeable public display by a law firm to be named board attorney.

Gregory Hopson and Gregory Brewington were sworn into new three-year terms and newcomers Angela Ahbez-Anderson and Sheila Brazile took their seats for three-year and one-year terms respectively.

Ahbez-Anderson finished just one vote ahead of running mate, Alena Berry who lost her bid for a seat. Berry said Wednesday night her ticket is seeking a recount with the intention of knocking off Hopson who finished about 25 votes ahead. A recount will be held next week, William Heine, the Monmouth County spokesman said Thursday.

The final vote tally in last week’s board elections was: Brewington, 313; Hopson, 277; Ahbez-Anderson, 252; Berry, 251; and John Morton, 202 for the three, three-year seats; and Brazille, 288 and Vanessa Barnes, 71, for the one, one-year term.

Remond Palmer, the board member who took control of five of the nine board votes in late February, officially took over as board president. Palmer faces having to step down from the board because of legislation that disqualifies board members if they have a past criminal offense, the same as those that prevent individuals from working in New Jersey schools.

In Palmer’s case, the offense is a cocaine possession charge in South Carolina when he was in his early 20s. He is 43 now.

On Thursday, his last day to sign or veto that legislation, Gov.