Brick Schools Holding Public Forum On Superintendent Hiring

BRICK, NJ — What qualities and qualifications do you want to see in the next superintendent of the Brick Township School District?

On Wednesday evening, you have the opportunity to tell Board of Education President John Lamela what you think the district most needs during a community input session.

The session is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the school district's Professional Development Center, 101 Hendrickson Ave., Brick — in the complex where the Veterans Memorial Elementary and Middle schools are located.

The school board is conducting a search for a superintendent to take over the district in July 2018, after the contract of suspended Superintendent Walter Uszenski expires. Dennis Filippone, who is the acting superintendent, has said he did not want the position permanently when he accepted the role in July 2017, replacing then-interim Superintendent Thomas Gialanella.

Gialanella was appointed in January 2016, and under state law, retired school administrators (Gialanella was the superintendent in the Jackson Township School District before he retired several years ago) can serve a maximum of two years in any interim assignment.

The district is accepting applications through Nov. 30.

At the school board meeting earlier this month, Lamela said the board is conducting the search for a new superintendent in-house rather than paying an outside firm because they feel they have the expertise in house to effectively conduct the search. Lamela is a middle school principal in Jackson and has served in other administrative roles in that district, but beyond him it's not known who will be involved in the search.

The job description posted in an advertisement on the NJ School Jobs website says the district is seeking "an educational leader with a vision of academic excellence and a commitment to providing a learning environment designed to meet the 21st century needs and interests of a talented student population."

The job description goes on to cite requirements including:

• Successful general or special education classroom teaching experience in a similar district.
• Evidence of job stability, community involvement, professional growth and participation in professional associations.
• Skilled in all aspects of fiscal management, operations: curriculum and instruction, personnel management, facility operations and labor relations.
• Effective leadership skills: visible and accessible with a strong community presence; ability to make tough decisions and take public responsibility for them, ability to delegate when appropriate, and able to inspire and motivate staff leadership roles.

One thing that seems certain is everyone considered for the position will undergo no only the scrutiny of the state Department of Education background checks, but will likely find themselves Googled incessantly by both those on the search committee and those who are not, thanks to the controversy surrounding the 2013 hiring of Andrew Morgan.

Morgan, who had worked with Uszenski previously, was hired in March 2013 to perform an audit of the special education services after the department suffered a $750,000 shortfall. Morgan was cleared to work in the district by the state Department of Education, which conducts background checks on every person seeking employment with any school district in the state. However, Morgan had been convicted in the early 1990s on drug charges — a conviction that was masked from his employment records due to an appeals process that no longer exists, a state investigator told the Patch in 2015.

Morgan, who taught English to 9th and 10th graders in a special education program at Canarsie High School in New York, was convicted of felony drug charges, according to reports in the New York Times. Those reports said he was charged in 1989 with possession of cocaine, as well as with conspiracy to sell heroin, in which he is said to have agreed to travel to Thailand to buy heroin for undercover agents posing as drug dealers. The heroin was supposed to be brought into this country concealed in disposable diapers, the authorities said.

"There used to be a process where someone could appeal if they could show they had been rehabilitated and be deemed acceptable for school employment," the investigator said. That meant Morgan was marked as employable despite the criminal conviction. Morgan currently is under indictment on a charge of lying on his employment application for saying he had not been convicted of a crime, a charge brought by the Ocean County Prosecutor's office.

The issue of Morgan's hiring was brought up during the election campaign, when current board member John Barton and Maria Foster, who was campaigning for a seat, distributed a letter accusing the former school board of failing to run "a simple background check" on Morgan. Larry Reid, who was on the board at the time of Morgan's hiring, blasted Barton at the Nov. 2 board meeting, calling the letter a blatant lie and pointing out that the board had followed all procedures. Barton was seeking re-election but lost his seat, falling third among the three candidates for the two seats. Board member Sharon Cantillo announced earlier this fall that she was not seeking re-election to the board.

The Professional Development Center is in the first building in the Veterans Memorial schools' complex.

Brick Township School District seal via superintendent's newsletter