Teaneck school board attempts court-ordered fix for 'deficiencies'

TEANECK — The Board of Education attempted to comply with a court order by passing a resolution on Wednesday affirming actions at two past meetings, but it was not without dissent and lingering questions about whether that was accomplished.

President Clara Williams and Vice President Kassandra Reyes criticized former Councilman Keith Kaplan, who filed a complaint against the school board Jan. 8 on five charges, including the "technicality" of failing to publish its meeting notices in two newspapers.

"We're also printing online. Newspapers are kind of outdated, and those meetings were very well attended," Reyes said. However, the Open Public Meetings Act specifies that electronic notice must be used "in addition" to print newspaper notices, not in place of them.

Superior Court Judge Carol Catuogno agreed with Kaplan that the deficient notices were part of an "ongoing pattern" by the board stretching back to September 2022. In July, she issued an order that the district must at least correct the "deficiencies" in the notices for its Dec. 21, 2023, special meeting and Jan. 3 reorganization meeting, and to "adhere strictly" to the requirements of the Open Public Meetings Act in the future.

Yet trustee James Wolff announced in the opening moments of Wednesday's meeting, "I do not believe that today's meeting has been adequately noticed in accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act, as we have not noticed the meeting and the agenda in two newspapers." The meeting still proceeded.

The board was asked to vote for three resolutions under Board Operations on Wednesday's agenda , including the corrective Resolution 1: "Be it resolved, that the Teaneck Board of Education hereby ratifies and re­affirms all action items which were passed at its meeting of Jan. 17, 2024." That resolution was intended to correct the errors in the two earlier meetings that were supposedly fixed on Jan. 17, but were not.

Wolff, who was sworn in at the Jan. 3 meeting with fellow Educational Excellence running mates David Gruber and Gerald Kirshenbaum, voted no on the resolution. Gruber and Kirshenbaum abstained, making the vote 5-1-2.

"I want to put on the record that as a new board member, I was not a board member on Dec. 21. I wasn't until Jan. 3," Kirshenbaum said. "I was concerned that I was not given full details and oriented as to why the meeting was scheduled on Dec. 21. As to the background, I recommend that future board members have an orientation."

Pedro Valdes III, the district's high school principal since July 2020, was removed from his seat at the lame-duck special meeting on Dec. 21. The reason given was that the high school's seniors who were in danger of failing to graduate required more oversight. So the board replaced Valdes with Piero LoGiudice, the principal of Whittier Elementary School.

More: America's Cup sailing is around the corner. Did you know it has ties to North Jersey?

Valdes filed a complaint with the New Jersey Public Employment Relations Commission in May disputing the dismissal as "disciplinary," resulting from disagreements with Schools Superintendent Andre Spencer, particularly over a controversial pro-Palestinian march organized by high school students on Nov. 29, 2023, to protest the Israel-Hamas war.

Williams criticized Kaplan for filing the suit.

"If you're really a friend of the district and you notice some things being done incorrectly, instead of initiating a lawsuit, which, again, has cost us close to $17,000, when you could have picked up the phone letting us know," Williams said. "So I just would appeal to the community to talk to these people who are initiating frivolous, costly suits when they can just speak to somebody and let us know you see us doing something incorrectly."

However, Kaplan did warn the board in the opening moments of the Jan. 3 reorganization meeting after the business administrator announced that the meeting did not have adequate notice. He did not file the complaint until Jan. 8, after the board failed to respond at the meeting.

"I'm going to give this board an opportunity to do the correct thing and actually live up to the transparency that they say they love," Kaplan said on Jan. 3. "Redo the vote that you took at the last meeting. I do not want to force the issue, which will be very costly and you will lose."

Kaplan did not speak at Wednesday's meeting.

Voting to approve the resolution were Williams, Reyes, Victoria Fisher, Edward Ha and Dennis Klein.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Teaneck school board attempts court-ordered fix for 'deficiencies'