BOE President Sam Lebreault listens to Interim Superintendent Dr. Vivian Rodriguez field questions from the Council. Lebreault read a statement about an incidents that occurred at the McGinnis School. He also addressed the lack of communications between the City and the Schools. (See full statement)
*Photo by Carolyn Maxwell

PERTH AMBOY – Good Evening! My name is Samuel Lebreault. As the Board of Education president, I am here with Interim Superintendent Dr. Vivian Rodriguez to speak on behalf of the school district on the matter of the perceived or real lack of communication about the McGinnis School closing last week. This closing, as you know, was prompted by a health emergency and the district’s responsibility to protect our students, staff, and community in general.

It was at 9:57 PM on Thursday night that Dr. Rodriguez made the decision to close the school. At 10:26 PM, Deputy Chief Cattano contacted our Security Director Mr. Charlie Wolff, and Dr. Rodriguez received a text from Noelia at 10:41 PM. Therefore, by 10:41 PM, both City Administration and the Police Department were fully aware of the incident and our response. Nevertheless, it is true that notification to any City official on our school closing came about 40 minutes after the decision to the close school was made. For that, we take full responsibility. However, I would like to offer the following, not as an excuse, but as a backdrop to try and understand how this oversight took place. Four out of the last 5 years, I have been designated as the Board’s City Liaison. Therefore, I can attest to what I am saying. The City has been reticent in communicating with the Board. As a matter of fact, in the last year alone there have been several major issues in the city that the board and our schools were never notified about.

(1) The shooting in the vicinity of Hall Avenue – police shot a resident who threatened them with a knife. This was in the vicinity of Patten School, yet neither the school nor the board office received notification. Mr. Wolff received a call from one of the security officers from Ignacio Cruz stating that he heard gunshots. That’s how the district found out about the shooting.

(2) A person was found stabbed multiple times behind the Patten School, on the other side of our fence, yet no one from the city ever contacted the school or the board office.

(3) An FBI swat team with some help from the PAPD was set up behind the high school to arrest someone who was living behind the high school. There were snipers on the roof tops and officers on the ground, yet neither the high school nor the board office were notified.

(4) In a time when this school system is so in need of a high school, last year the city had conversations with the School Development Authority and the Housing Authority about the purchase of a property to construct a high school. And, at no time did the city reach out to the board to have the board participate in these conversations.

(5) Late last year, instead of simply picking up the phone and calling the board, the city chose to use Facebook to communicate its feelings on the possible purchase of a property to be developed for a new high school.

(6) Let us also realize that last Thursday we were confronted with a type of emergency not seen in this city, or at least not in many decades. Thus, we were all immersed in mitigating this event, developing recommendations, and implementing those recommendations. This, undoubtedly, contributed to the communication gap; if you will.

Let us remember that communication is a two-way street! The residents of this city expect and deserve better from all of us. I want to emphasize that we failed to communicate to city officials and or the police department in a timely manner our decision to close the school. The district is addressing this shortfall and is institutionalizing a process by which we can all be assured that this will not happen again. We are here to take responsibility for this miscue.