By Joanne Degnan, Staff Writer
MILLSTONE — The Board of Education introduced Rumson’s schools chief, Scott Feder, on Tuesday night as the next Millstone superintendent of schools.
Mr. Feder, 42, of Plainsboro, will begin working in Millstone in early August, replacing Jack Szabo, who has been serving as the district’s interim superintendent since the retirement of Mary Anne Donahue in August.
“I come to you very excited to start,” Mr. Feder said in his brief remarks to the 20 or so people at Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting. “Thank you for welcoming me, and thank you to the board for giving me this opportunity.”
Millstone Board of Education President Kevin McGovern said Mr. Feder was the “unanimous and enthusiastic choice” of the entire board. He will be officially appointed at the school board’s May 2 reorganization meeting.
“This board went through a very intensive process in terms of vetting, reviewing and interviewing a variety of candidates from across the state,” Mr. McGovern said. “We interviewed eight or nine different candidates … and then we winnowed down the field over the course of time.”
Mr. Feder, who has been superintendent of the K-8 Rumson School District since January 2010, has 20 years of experience in education as a teacher and principal. Prior to coming to Monmouth County, Mr. Feder was the principal of the Dutch Neck Elementary School in West Windsor for nine years and served one year as the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District’s director of elementary education, supervising six schools with 4,000 students.
Calling the schools chief job in Millstone an “excellent opportunity to be part of a great school system,” Mr. Feder also said he’s been favorably impressed by the teachers, administrators and school board members whom he’s met here.
“This is a very pro-education school board that wants to do good things, but is also conscious of its fiscal responsibilities,” Mr. Feder said.
A native of East Windsor, Mr. Feder graduated from Hightstown High School in 1986. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Rhode Island and his master’s from Rider University. Mr. Feder’s first job in education was as a fifth-grade social studies and language arts teacher in the Perry L. Drew School in the East Windsor Regional School District. Mr. Feder also served as a teacher and administrator in the South Brunswick School District for six years and obtained his first principal’s position in West Orange, where he worked for two years before going to the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District in 2000.
The board did not say Tuesday night how much Mr. Feder would be paid as Millstone superintendent, and Mr. Feder declined to discuss that after the meeting because he had not yet been appointed. Mr. Feder’s salary in Rumson is $148,000.
Mr. Feder is married and has two daughters, who are in third grade and fifth grade. Mr. Feder said he had recently sold his home in Plainsboro and that he and his wife and daughters were looking to relocate to the Monmouth County area.

