By Joanne Degnan, Staff Writer
MILLSTONE — The Board of Education on Monday approved the hiring of an interim director of special services for 2011-2012, as well as a short-term consulting contract for its incoming schools superintendent to enable him to become familiar with the district prior to his official Aug. 1 start date.
Scott Feder, who is resigning his position as Rumson schools superintendent in July in order to take the top job in the Millstone School District, will be paid $600 a day by Millstone for a maximum of 10 days’ work in June and July.
Effective Aug. 1, Mr. Feder will earn a base salary of $155,000 as the district’s permanent superintendent, replacing interim Superintendent John Szabo, who has led the district since September. Dr. Szabo, who is now paid the same $600 per diem, said taxpayers would not be paying two superintendents at once.
”The board is not going to pay any additional money,” Dr. Szabo said in response to Robbins Road resident Neil Schloss’ question about the specifics of the consulting contract. “In other words, when Scott is here I’m going to make sure that I am taking time off so that we are not charging the board more than $600 a day.”
”Basically, what we’re looking to do is bring him in so that he can be more familiar with the district … and some of the substantive things that he should know prior to assuming the position of superintendent,” Dr. Szabo said.
The Board of Education also approved the hiring of an interim director of special services, Henrietta “Hank” Graber, for the 2011-2012 year. Ms. Graber is the supervisor of special services in the Rumson district where Mr. Feder now works, but she intends to retire from Rumson at the end of the current school year.
Ms. Graber will be paid $500 a day as the interim director of special services in Millstone and the expectation is to have a permanent director in place by the 2012-2013 school year, said Board of Education President Kevin McGovern.
A special education teacher in the audience questioned why the district was only hiring an interim director, instead of a permanent director, if revamping the special education department was a priority. Mr. McGovern said that the new superintendent should be in charge of the search process for a permanent director and there wasn’t enough time for Mr. Feder to do that before September.
”Between winding down in Rumson, because he’s still employed in Rumson full time until the end of July, and ramping up here, which he’ll be doing over the course of 10 days, that didn’t provide for the kind of comprehensive search he wanted to do,” Mr. McGovern said.
Mr. Feder intends to advertise for the permanent special services director in January 2012 and conduct a thorough search so that the permanent director is ready to start in September 2012, Mr. McGovern said.
Ms. Graber was an ideal choice for the interim position because she has worked with Mr. Feder for a long time, Mr. McGovern said.
”There’s no learning curve involved … she has shown great success in dealing with the high classification rate in Rumson and we hope and expect that she’ll do good things during her time here,” Mr. McGovern said.
During the public hearings on the Millstone school budget earlier this year, the Board of Education said it wanted to overhaul the special services department by hiring of a director to help the district avoid costly lawsuits over non-compliance with the individual education plans (IEPs) of classified students. A director, who would have more training, expertise, and a principal’s certification, also could help prevent “over-classification” of students, board members said.
Dr. Szabo said at that time that 19 percent of Millstone students are classified for special education services, a rate that exceeds the 14 percent state average and the Upper Freehold Regional School District’s 12 percent classification rate.

