Teachers crowd the Matawan Aberdeen Regional School District Board of Education meeting on June 11 to protest proposed staffing reassignments and transfers. NICOLE ANTONUCCI A standing-room-only crowd of teachers filled the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District Board of Education meeting room Monday night to protest staffing reassignments throughout the district. Proposed staffing changes, which involve approximately 38 percent of the faculty, or 19 teachers, at Lloyd Road Elementary School in Aberdeen, were tabled after approximately 100 teachers raised concerns during the board’s June 11 workshop meeting at Cambridge Park Elementary School.
An additional 12 teachers are being reassigned to other schools. “My transfer along with the other involuntary transfers are not only ethically egregious but, most importantly, detrimental to our students,” Barbara Danback, a school counselor at the grades 4-5 school, said.
Teachers lined up to take turns at the podium to tell the board the transfers are involuntary and to ask the board to reconsider such a large move.
“My colleagues and I believe that the transfers being recommended are not educationally sound,” Wendy Winchel, a fifthgrade teacher at Lloyd Road, said.
The board did not respond to comments and questions.
In an interview following the meeting, district Superintendent David Healy explained that administrators had several meetings with the building principals, di- rectors of accountability and the assistant superintendent to plan the staffing changes. The decisions are being made in the best interest of the students, he said.
“The focus was on increasing student achievement, strengthening grade-level teams and addressing the performance concerns in the buildings, specifically literacy and math,” he said. “Alot of planning went into this.”
With a line of teachers waiting to speak, board President Charles Kenny stopped the meeting and asked for a motion to convene in executive session to discuss personnel matters.
Approximately 10 minutes later, the board reconvened the meeting and Kenny announced the staffing changes were being withdrawn from the agenda as an action item. The crowd reacted with loud applause.
Healy explained that the decision to defer action was a result of the concerns raised by the teachers.
“I listened to the comments made by the teachers and other individuals and felt it best to reconvene the administrative team and to review some of their concerns,” he said.
In addition to the teacher turnover at the school, the staffing changes include new building administrators.
In September, Lloyd Road School will have a new principal. Current principal Luigi Laugelli submitted his resignation on June 7, citing personal reasons, according to Healy.
The district also created the new position of assistant principal.
In addition to the approximately 12 teachers in line for transfer, the principal’s secretary and the school’s guidance counselor are also being reassigned to new schools.
Teachers told the board that staff is not only being transferred to new buildings but reassigned to different grade levels, for which they have not been trained.
“I am being transferred to Ravine Drive School to teach kindergarten for the 2012- 13 school year. I did not request this transfer. A kindergarten teacher from Ravine Drive School was told that she is being transferred to Lloyd Road to teach fourth grade; she didn’t request this transfer,” Linda Forgie, a Lloyd Road teacher, stated, adding that she does not know the kindergarten curriculum, nor does the other teacher know the fourth- grade curriculum.
“I want to know how these transfers will be justifiable and beneficial. Improving fourth-grade test scores is a main goal of the district. Does transferring a kindergarten teacher to fourth grade in a school that is in its second year of not meeting adequate yearly progress benchmarks make sense? These transfers will do nothing to attain this goal.”
Healy said in the interview that teachers with elementary certification are able to teach multiple grade levels.
“Just because you taught fifth grade doesn’t mean that you can’t go teach first grade. That is what we do as teachers, especially when we have elementary certifications,” he said. “We can teach all grade levels, and that is what our certification tells us to do.”
He explained that the teachers being reassigned would continue to receive the necessary training to educate the students.
“The trainings have been taking place over the past few years, and just because we have teachers that have been trained in certain grade levels doesn’t mean we can’t move teachers to other grade levels and they can’t be successful. There should be no reason why they can’t be successful.” Many teachers told the board the transfers are retaliation for speaking out in the past.
“My transfer is being done as a punitive act of retaliation for speaking out about my concerns this past school year. This is true for some others as well,” Forgie said.
Barbara Wolf, a basic skills teacher, claimed that the transfers were recommended by a principal who has resigned.
“I believe the [changes] are vindictive,” she said.
Her comments stirred the few parents in attendance, who voiced their concerns to the board.
“To transfer teachers across these grades makes no sense to me. We will have a new principal, new assistant principal. Then we have this teacher turnover. I don’t get it. I want to know where the accountability is?” Marcye McFadden, of Aberdeen, said, drawing applause from the crowd.
“We are spending [thousands] of dollars training teachers and then moving them out after spending all this money and resources. How is that responsible to the taxpayers of Matawan and Aberdeen?”
Karen McFadden also stood up to speak, questioning the district’s leadership.
“We have lost our way. There seems to be a theme here of concern in the overall leadership of the administration. Who is steering the ship and with what intent is it being steered?” she asked.
“There is a strong belief that there has been retribution or punitive action, so I will tell you as a parent that my trust level is not very high, and that is very disconcerting.”
However, Healy stated in the interview that retaliation or punitive action is not the motivation for the staffing change.
“It wasn’t done in a vacuum and it wasn’t done by one individual. There were a number of people in the room. There was never a discussion about retaliations or criticisms or pay-backs or any of those discussions,” he said.
“The staffing changes were a collaborative effort. It was people that were intimately aware of every faculty member, the programs, the initiatives and the district needs.”
According to Carl Kosmyna, president of the Matawan Regional Teachers Association (MRTA), the proposed staffing change is one of the largest in several years.
“Usually we have five to 10 transfers. Some are due to enrollment,” he said. “Enrollment was not the cause here. We are looking at mass changes.”
Kosmyna explained that discussions with administration have taken place but legally the matter is out of the union’s hands.
“The union can point out things to the board that they may have overlooked,” he said. “But management has every right to assign staff as they see fit.”
Under terms of the teachers’ contract, administrators are only obligated to notify teachers of new assignments a week before the last day of school.
Since action won’t be taken until after school has ended, the board asked Kosmyna for a waiver.
According to Kosmyna, by contract, the board must take action on personnel items before the last day of school.
However, Kosmyna granted the waiver with a stipulation that action be taken at the next board meeting on June 25 and teachers must be notified on June 26.