BY JOYCE BLAY
Staff Writer
LAKEWOOD — The search for a new superintendent of schools includes a candidate already familiar with the job, according to Board of Education President Chet Galdo.
“By the time the board gets to what it needs to do by July, Ed Luick could be the next superintendent,” Galdo said on June 3 of the acting superintendent. “Ed Luick, who’s been an active member of this district for 31 years, is doing a pretty darn magnificent job. We’ve talked about what he’s doing and how the district is running very well.”
Galdo cautioned that any decision to appoint Luick would have to be made by all nine members of the board.
“I spoke to [Ocean County Superintendent of Schools] Bruce Greenfield last week and I told him we’re getting close” to selecting a new superintendent, Galdo said. “The New Jersey School Boards Association [NJSBA] has not heard the finals from us on that. They have a right to be informed.”
Luick was appointed to the position of acting superintendent following the resignation of interim superintendent of schools Ann Murphy Garcia in February.
Frank Belluscio, a spokesman for the NJSBA, which is helping the district conduct the superintendent search, told the Tri-Town News by e-mail on June 6 that the board is considering two finalists for the position. He said the board began conducting interviews at the end of March.
“Our consultant met with the Lakewood school board on Feb. 22 to go over the pool [of] applications received,” Belluscio wrote. “The actual delivery of the applications to the board took place prior to that date. The board has the option of presenting the finalist[s] to a community forum. Not all boards hold such forums. The Lakewood Board of Education has not indicated whether or not it wants to hold such a forum.”
Belluscio said that only the board president — Galdo — could elect to divulge the identity of those candidates the board was considering.
When asked if the board was considering Michael Rush, who has been mentioned in newspaper articles as a candidate, Galdo acknowledged the board’s interest in Rush’s candidacy.
Rush is chief of staff in the state Department of Education.
“Dr. Rush is still there,” Galdo said. “Any individual that’s running for a job has the right to campaign for that job, but [the board is] also a public agency and [he would only get the job] by public vote. Dr. Rush has been using his connections and his friends” to influence the process.
A finalist in the search for a new superintendent of schools was scheduled to have been chosen by April 1, according to a timeline established in September by the NJSBA.
By May, a formal offer of employment was to have been made to the successful candidate and he or she was scheduled to begin work on July 1. That date is likely to come and go without a permanent superintendent of schools taking the helm of the district, Galdo indicated.
“Right now, the problem is the situation with the business manager,” Galdo said.
At an April 3 emergency meeting, board members announced that the panel’s attorney had been instructed to draw up tenure charges against business manager Kathryn Fuoto based on the findings of two accounting firms that were presented to the public in March.
Galdo told the Tri-Town News that the district has held off on filing tenure charges against Fuoto in order to negotiate a settlement.
“[Fuoto] has until June 20 to reply to our offer,” he said. “[Her attorney] made an offer, we’ve made an offer. That’s the biggest of the situations right now.”
Fuoto is represented by attorney Francis Campbell of Red Bank. Campbell did not return calls for comment.
In addition to personnel concerns, the board is also preparing for a referendum which will ask for residents’ approval to build a new elementary school, Galdo said.
He said in a previous interview that the district needs the additional school due to increased demand for classroom space, despite a relatively stable public school enrollment for the past five years.
“We have to have a five-year plan in place by Oct. 1,” said Galdo. “We don’t have an architect of record and we need that. Once we have an architect of record in house, we got a list like you wouldn’t believe. There’s a lot” that has to be done.
Galdo said the board is working to make the entire district and its administration successful.
“In all honesty, we’re moving in [the right] direction,” he said.