By now most of you have probably seen or heard, either via the north Jersey dot com article or the varied social media postings and comments out there. My observations from the meeting are below.
The agenda for the meeting was light. Dr. Dionisio acknowledged September 11th. Most of the BOE committees had not met since August 28th so there were few updates.
When board discussion was opened, Dr. Aaron Lorenz made a motion to remove Judy Sullivan as Board President. Helen Koulikourdis seconded the motion.
The Board selects their own President, it's not up to the community to decide who represents the Board. The Board President determines the agenda for Board meetings together with the Superintendent, has the gavel at board meetings and is responsible to ensure that Robert's Rules of Order are followed during meetings. The Board President is supposed to represent the entire Board at the Board table, and in interactions with the media and the community. The Board President also has the power to determine when Board legal counsel should be consulted (no other individual Board member has this authority).
Dr. Lorenz's motion to remove her, which he said was not made lightly, cited several reasons: - public admonishment and evaluation of Superintendent and Administration; - use of Board letterhead for public statement without receiving Board approval and without questions being posed to initiate a response, - silencing Board members during discussion in violation of Robert’s Rules, and - excessively seeking legal advice without Board discussion resulting in an impending $500,000 yearly bill for legal fees.
Any Board member has the right to make a motion and to have their motion be heard and discussed. Ms. Sullivan's initial reaction to Dr. Lorenz's motion was to say something along the lines of 'you can't do that, I'm not recognizing you'. She was wrong. Dr. Lorenz had a right to make a motion and have it be heard, discussed and voted on. Her response was exactly one of the reasons Dr. Lorenz cited in his motion to remove her - "silencing Board members during discussion”. In this case she tried to prevent the both the motion and the discussion from happening.
Ms. Sullivan then attempted to recess the meeting without voting on the motion (another violation of Robert's Rules). After being called out on that violation, she took it upon herself to call the board attorney from the Board table (yet again incurring legal fees without the consent of the rest of the Board). Not ONE but TWO members of the Board’s legal firm Porzio Bromberg & Newman joined the meeting via Zoom to explain Robert’s Rules.
The Board counsel supported Dr. Lorenz's right to make the motion and his right to have his motion heard and voted on.
From there Ms. Sullivan tried to demand a "trial". Again it was noted that she was incorrect in her citations of both Robert's Rules and Board policy. She was not entitled to a "trial". The Board was entitled to vote to remove her, and she would then have the right to appeal the decision her Board made by going to the Commissioner of Education and filing a complaint asking the Commissioner of Education to overturn the Board's decision and to reinstate her as Board president. It is difficult for me to imagine that the Commissioner of Education would reinstate a Board president who was ousted by their Board. But just as Dr. Lorenz had a right to make the motion, Ms. Sullivan had the right to file a complaint to appeal it. These are the rules, processes and policies within which a Board of Education is supposed to operate.
For the next two hours, Ms. Sullivan continued to defend her right to be President and continued to protest a vote on the motion.
At approximately 11pm, the Board finally voted on the motion to remove Ms. Sullivan as President. The motion failed in a 4-5 vote, with DeLaite, Lorenz, King and Koulikourdis voting to remove Sullivan as President, and Ansh, Bogdansky (after a notable pause), Emmolo, Mariani and Sullivan herself voting to keep her as President.
Had the vote been allowed to proceed without Ms. Sullivan's obstruction at the beginning of the meeting, perhaps we'd all have been spared a few hours.
I've seen a few posts saying this meeting was an embarrassment to the district. Quite frankly, this entire year has been an embarrassment to our district. We lost our Superintendent, Business Administrator, not one but two legal counsels, and have a projected 400% plus increase in legal fees under Ms. Sullivan's “leadership". Perhaps it was time to let someone new hold the gavel?
Alas, the majority of the Board voted to continue as is and here we are. The vote was held, the motion failed and now it's time to move on.
Other actions taken at the meeting: Superintendent Replacement
- Ms. Sullivan had put two motions tabled by the Board at the August 28th meeting back on the agenda (yet another violation of Robert's Rules by the President who continues to boast of her background as an attorney; the motions should not have been put back on an agenda until the Board passed a motion to un-table them). The motions, to post internally for an Acting Superintendent and to solicit proposals and hire a Superintendent Search firm, were promptly tabled again, and the Board will proceed with its plan to hire an interim Superintendent.
Ramapo Indian Hills board fell one vote short in effort to remove President Judy Sullivan
A motion to remove the president of the Ramapo Indian Hills school board failed by a 5-4 vote after a two-hour debate at Monday's regular meeting.
Check out this story on northjersey.com: https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/oakland/2023/09/12/ramapo-indian-hills-board-fell-short-in-effort-to-remove-president/70830284007/