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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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ASBURY PARK — Schools Superintendent Denise Lowe will focus on the changes in both education and school building assignments for children next fall at her spring town hall meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, 600 Monroe Ave.

The meeting is important for parents in light of the closing of the Barack Obama Elementary School next fall. Students who normally would go to the Obama neighborhood school are being assigned to the two other elementary schools, and if in fifth grade, to the Asbury Park Middle School.

Parents can learn their child’s school assignment and safety measures that will be in place for walking students. In addition, Lowe will discuss a new fifth-grade wing that is being created at the middle school.
That town meeting will follow Wednesday night’s school board reorganization meeting at 7 p.m. at Bradley Elementary School. Incumbents Gregory Hopson and Gregory Brewington will be sworn into new terms and elected newcomers Angelina Ahbez-Anderson and Sheila Brazile will begin their first terms for three-year and one-year terms respectively.

Brazile has three children. Her oldest son is an Asbury Park High School graduate, a second son is at the high school now and a daughter is in first grade at Bradley Elementary School.

Candidate Alena Berry who was the announced winner over Ahbez-Anderson by one vote on election night, but sheturned out to be one vote behind in certified election results Tuesday, school district spokeswoman Nakill Williams said.

Ahbez-Anderson is president of the Thurgood Marshall PTO.

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ASBURY PARK — A bill awaiting Gov. Chris Christie’s signature could mean that Asbury Park school board member Remond Palmer would have to step down from the board.

The legislation, which has been passed by both the state Senate and Assembly, requires that any person elected or appointed to a school board in New Jersey would be disqualified from serving because of a conviction for the type of crime that currently disqualifies a person from working in a public school.

In Palmer’s case, he has previously challenged and lost a state Department of Education decision that he could not work in a school district in New Jersey because of a 1989 criminal conviction in South Carolina on a charge of cocaine possession when he was in his early 20s.

According to a Jan. 12, 2010, decision by the state commissioner of education, Palmer, now 43, challenged the 2008 determination by the state education department’s criminal history review unit.

Palmer contended a 2002 South Carolina pardon for the offense removed him from the reach of the New Jersey law that permanently disqualifies an individual with a drug possession conviction from working in school districts. But the commissioner last year ruled an administrative law judge had correctly rejected that argument by Palmer.

In addition, although South Carolina did not allow a cocaine possession conviction to be expunged and New Jersey does allow that expungement for simple possession, the New Jersey courts have no jurisdiction to expunge the South Carolina conviction, the commissioner said.

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Administrator files harassment complaint

ASBURY PARK — With his godfather and newly appointed board member John Morton representing the fifth vote needed to assume power on the city school board, member Remond Palmer made a move Wednesday night to switch board attorneys.

But Palmer met up with a more powerful force, the state fiscal monitor assigned to the district to oversee all finances, hiring and firing. That official, Bruce Rodman, overturned the board vote making the switch Thursday morning.

At the end of the same school board meeting Wednesday, a close Palmer associate, Darryl Hammary, made a comment which school board administrator Corey Lowell said had threatened her. Hammary had requested to use school facilities for an extended period this spring and summer for a basketball clinic, but was turned down.

On Thursday morning, Lowell went to police and signed a harassment complaint against Hammary.

“The body of the complaint says Hammary said: “I’ll get you. You’ll be sorry’ ” and then he used an expletive, police Capt. Anthony Salerno said Thursday.

Lowell said in her complaint that Hammary also made harassing statements to other school officials, Salerno said.

Hammary could not be reached for comment Thursday. He helped Palmer and two running mates get on the school board a year ago and is a campaign manager of four candidates, including Morton, in next month’s elections.

Palmer moved to bring on different attorneys after first asking if the board was going to appeal the fiscal monitor’s decision last week to close the Barack Obama Elementary School.