By Joanne Degnan, Staff Writer
MILLSTONE After nearly a year of discussions, the Millstone Board of Education announced Monday night it was declining the Upper Freehold Regional School District’s offer to share its superintendent, and would instead hire its own schools chief to lead the K-8 district.
Board of Education President Kevin McGovern said the two districts, however, have agreed to share other personnel in moves that will save money for taxpayers and improve educational opportunities for Millstone students.
UFRSD Assistant Superintendent Stephen Cochrane will work for Millstone 30 percent of the time in an effort to better align curriculum and programs for Millstone students who eventually attend Allentown High School. The decision means Millstone will pay 30 percent of Mr. Cochrane’s salary ($46,000), and the full-time $152,000 position of curriculum director in Millstone will be eliminated, Mr. McGovern said. A part-time Millstone curriculum supervisor would be hired instead.
”We think this approach has great merit and great potential to do something that’s right by our students and right by our taxpayers,” Mr. McGovern said in a presentation to the public during the regular board meeting.
”We are sharing personnel for the first time, which is truly a breakthrough for both districts,” he said. “We have achieved savings, and we have done so in manner that does not undermine, but in fact improves, the delivery of curriculum.”
The two districts also will collapse their separate transportation offices into one operation, but details on how many staff will remain and where are still in flux, Mr. McGovern said. The district has ruled out sharing services for the business office, special education and athletics, but is keeping the door open for future discussions in the areas of technology and buildings and grounds, he said.
Millstone is using this opportunity to revamp its Special Services department for special education students. The board’s plan eliminates the current $95,000 position of supervisor of special services and hires a director of special services instead. The latter position, projected to cost $133,000, would require an applicant to have more extensive credentials, including a principal’s certification.
”We were concerned about a variety of what we saw as issues of a long-term nature in special services not just educational performance through NJASK scores, but compliance with IEPs, and litigation,” Mr. McGovern said, referring to the individual education plans required for special education students. “And we believed that kicking it up a notch in terms of the level of management, the force of oversight, is something that will ultimately pay for itself.”
The net savings from all the personnel moves outlined Monday night is about $88,000 although the figure could change since any tenured administrator who is laid off has bumping rights that affect people in other positions.
Several teachers, two of whom broke down in tears, raised questions about whether bumping would cause another change in leadership at the middle school, which has had four principals in the past four years.
”Unfortunately, the bumping process is not something that this board can control,” Mr. McGovern said. “It is a possibility that the current team in the middle school could be disrupted … and we have to be candid about that.”
While some people in the audience felt the changes went too far, others felt they did not go far enough.
Resident Ramon Recalde told the board he was “deeply disappointed” that it had decided not to share Upper Freehold’s superintendent.
Mr. McGovern said the proposal from Upper Freehold, which was delivered in an executive session in January and revealed for the first time Monday night, would have put Superintendent Richard Fitzpatrick in Millstone all day on Mondays and for half a day on Thursdays and Fridays the equivalent of two full work days. The Millstone school district would have had to pay 40 percent of his salary ($78,000).
”At two days a week it would be literally impossible for Dr. Fitzpatrick, or anyone else, to have the same level of community visibility, interaction and interplay with staff, with students, and with the community as would a full-time superintendent,” Mr. McGovern said.
What “tipped the balance” in the board’s mind, however, was the potential for a shared superintendent to have a conflict since both districts he works for would have an “extensive fiscal relationship,” Mr. McGovern said.
”Upper Freehold and Millstone are engaged in millions of dollars worth of financial arrangements,” Mr. McGovern said. “We pay them millions in tuition every year sometimes we have found we owe them some money, sometimes they owe us.
”We also have a $300,000 interlocal (transportation) services contract in place and we realized there was a potential for those fiscal relationships to raise conflicts in a shared-superintendent environment,” he said.
The two school districts have been holding meetings to explore sharing services since former Millstone Superintendent Mary Anne Donahue announced last March she would retire in August.
The board hired John Szabo to serve as interim superintendent in September while it worked on “parallel tracks” to advertise for its own permanent superintendent and continue discussions with Upper Freehold on whether to share its superintendent or other services.
Mr. McGovern said the board had concluded its second round of superintendent interviews on Monday in executive session. The board was “duly impressed with the quality of the people we’ve interviewed so far,” he said.
