I understand, as the wife of an elected official, that the day my husband (Manalapan Committeeman Drew Shapiro) was elected certain things would change. I knew that occasionally … people might come up to me and ask what my husband’s views were on certain issues. It comes with the territory.
However, when the local school budgets were voted down, I did not realize the extent that our new Manalapan-English-town Regional School District superinten-dent of schools would go to to save face.
You see, the voters of Manalapan and Englishtown voted down the budgets; they felt that they would like to see the governing body take a look at it and see what they can do to reduce the usual increase in our school taxes.
On April 26, subcommittees from the Manalapan and Englishtown governing bodies and representatives of the school board met. At that meeting the statement was made that our officials would like the school board to re-look at the budget and make recommendations on lowering the budget. The initial statement was made by my husband that the philosophy has been decided that no cuts would be accepted if it affected the children or teachers of our town.
In the days that followed, Superinten-dent of Schools Dr. Maureen Lally proceeded to put together a phone list with the names and phone numbers of the governing body; she then called meetings and distributed the list. It was given to school principals, PTA presidents, and it was then given to teachers and PTA members.
There is one major problem here: my family’s home number is unpublished, my husband gives out his cell number regularly, he gives out the town hall number regularly, but our home number is private. The list that was distributed included our unpublished number. Where did Dr. Lally obtain this number? You be the judge.
When questioned at a school board meeting, of course, Dr. Lally denied having taken this from our child’s school record. She claims "someone" gave it to her. She knows if taken from the records, this behavior is inappropriate in nature, but obviously she would not reveal who gave it to her.
Let’s say for argument’s sake it was given to her. Does she have the right to distribute home numbers to thousands of residents? School board President Jim Mumolie does not think so; he apologized to my husband for the incident at the recent school board meeting.
I guess I should mention my anger stems from a call that was received by my 14-year-old daughter on April 30 which was abusive in nature. This caller was given false information by Dr. Lally simply to get the people in an uproar over the budget.
The school board claims they knew nothing of Dr. Lally’s plans or orchestrations. Do they not have the obligation to punish their employee for the invasion of privacy of a family?
By the way, Dr. Lally, the residents of Manalapan are extremely concerned with the increase in school taxes, the overcrowding in the classes and the lack of teachers. My husband has your home number; please let him know if he can distribute that to the residents so they can discuss these matters with you.
Susan Shapiro
Manalapan