In the QSAC District Improvement Plan (DIP) you declare:

Under Step 1: Indicators (DPR or SOA)
Step 2: Issue/Actions/Strategies/Intervention and Budget Resources
#4 – Ensure a Chief School Administrator, Superintendent, is identified and hired to lead the school district the 2014 – 2015 school year.

 My question –

What steps have you taken thus far to fulfill this declaration in the report you plan to submit on April 11, 2014?

Dr. Vivian Rodriquez is currently our “interim” or “acting” Superintendent. Normally when this type of situation occurs, whomever is in this role, ensures that all currently policies are carried out in the proper manner, not setting up new ones. When Mr. Derek Jess was in this position. He did not make any major policy changes. He made sure that what was in place ran smoothly.

Is it legal for her to make such changes and if so where is the documentation that purports such actions?

I said all of that to ask this:

Why are you wasting time in recreating the wheel? You have listed as part of the agenda items you plan to address tonight, the declaration of new job descriptions. Now these job descriptions are listed on the districts website. And I have a copy of them here in my hands.

Now my first problem is with the documents themselves. They are riddled with highlights and strike throughs. And the one that I am really questioning clearly states that the document is a draft.

How can you adopt a job description without the document being a clean read? How would the public know what the final version of the document will looks like if you adopt it tonight? Or are you planning to make more adjustments without the public knowing?

Another point to be made is – WHY NOW?  It is abundantly clear that we are in need of a Superintendent – but you are putting your efforts into redefining a job that is currently occupied with a person who is performing extremely well for the district?

Why haven’t you as a Board given her the opportunity to acquire these credentials? It is my understanding that she is well on her way to obtaining the “additional” credentials you desire through the tuition reimbursement process that our district is paying for.

Are the other administrator’s in the district completely certified in each and every area they as suppose to be according to their job descriptions? If not, are they being let go too? Is seems to me if this is now going to be the standard for ALL administrators you as a board are probably going to give them time to acquire the necessary certifications. With that in mind, shouldn’t that same courtesy be extended to our current HR Manager. Let me – let you in on something that you may not be aware of – it is known throughout the community that if you want to be employed in this district you have to be Latino/Latina. I personally didn’t want to believe that but by the action you plan to take here tonight – maybe, just maybe, the community knows what it is talking about.

How can you throw away such a valuable employee that has done nothing but elevate the entire district with her work performance? She has been very instrumental in putting into place practices and procedures that has us now, as a district, in compliance with state regulations.

Is it because she is not Spanish? If you want a higher standard for this position that’s great.

However, Why not give this women the opportunity to rise to the occasion? There are plenty of “fires” in this district that require immediate attention. But what does this board do? It wastes valuable time in an area that doesn’t require immediate attention. In closing, I want to put this Board on notice. All of the backroom deals must come to an end. The community is watching, especially the NAACP. We the NAACP are aware that the incoming Vice Principal for the STEM program is an African American women from the state of Florida.

But what are you doing, trading one out for another?  We will be taking the appropriate actions to notify the County (Mr. Todd Flora, County Superintendent) and the State (Mr. David Hespe, State Commissioner of Education) to let them know exactly what is going on here in Perth Amboy. I truly wish you would reconsider this whole matter. I think it’s a shame that even before we can adopt the new job description we have already selected the person to fill the role. Well, let be the first one in town to welcome our new Director of Personnel and Evaluation – Ms. Carmen Sanchez Southward. She is already very politically connected here in Perth Amboy though she resides in another community. And now that we all know who has the job, you don’t have to go through the ferocity of the posting and interviewing for this position.

THANK YOU