Five area school board members and a charter-school trustee are among 12 New Jersey education officials disqualified from their posts for failing a newly required criminal background check, according to the state Education Department.
http://liarcatchers.com/background_checks.html
In addition, an anticipated 189 school board members, out of 4,702 statewide, and 165 of 597 charter-school trustees will be notified that they may no longer serve because they did not submit to background checks by the Dec. 31 deadline, according to the state.
A further 404 school board members and 101 charter-school trustees could lose their volunteer posts, at least temporarily, for not meeting the requirement, which was signed into law in May.
State education spokeswoman Allison Kobus said those who have not completed the process still may do so, but she said it would be up to individual districts to decide if personnel will be reinstated.
The state provided the names but not the offenses of the 12 disqualified from their board seats. Kobus said some were trying to get their records expunged in the hope they might return to their positions.
Area school board officials whose criminal records disqualified them are Steven Troilo of Laurel Springs, Dino Capaldi of Winslow Township, Alvin Garlic of Woodbury, George Crouch of Atlantic City, and Joseph Toland of Somers Point.
Also disqualified was Louis “Jerry” Klause, a founder of Charter Tech High School for the Performing Arts in Somers Point.
Troilo, 46, would not specify his offense, but said it happened 22 years ago and did not endanger children. Troilo said he was trying to get his record expunged.
He said he understood the need to protect students. “But at the same time,” Troilo said Friday, “you step up to the plate and volunteer your time and give it your all, and they take it away because of something that happened 22 years ago.”
Efforts by The Inquirer to reach Capaldi, Garlic, Toland, and Crouch were unsuccessful.
New Jersey School Boards Association spokesman Frank Belluscio said his organization would like the law to be amended so the state education commissioner can hear appeals that take into account the nature of the crime, how long ago it occurred, and what kind of citizen the offender has become.
“I was guilty of smoking a joint in a parking lot. I was 23, and it was 1974,” said Klause, 60, of Linwood, who formerly served on the Ocean City school board.
At the time, he said, he paid a $60 fine.
Klause said he, too, was trying to get his record expunged. As president of the board at Charter Tech, he said, he has appointed his successor and will continue to serve the school in another capacity if he cannot be reinstated.
Renata Hernandez, president of the school board in Plainfield, Union County, said the district brought a court action on behalf of member Rasheed Abdul-Haqq, who lost his seat after the check revealed a criminal history. The court action has not proven successful.
Abdul-Haqq, an advocate for children and parents, has always been open about his past, she said.
“It’s just a tragedy,” she said,
Abdul-Haqq, 68, said he was convicted for possessing a small bag of heroin in the late 1960s, did prison time, joined the Nation of Islam, and went on to work in corrections and operate a limousine service.
“I came back into the community and tried to make it a better place,” Abdul-Haqq said Friday. He said he had one other conviction, for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct during a traffic stop in the early 1980s.
Abdul-Haqq said he might run for the city council.
Belluscio said his association had suggested that public officials also be required to submit to criminal background checks, but said the Legislature did not agree.
A statute enacted in 1986 requires all school district employees, but not board members, to get background checks. The law was not retroactive, however.
Assemblyman Jerry Green (D., Union) said Friday that he did not know that when he sponsored the 2011 bill. Green defended the need for board members to submit to background checks, saying they make decisions about money and education but often little is known about them.
Green said he was working to create a bill that would make it easier to expunge criminal records.
“I’m a strong believer in a second chance,” he said.
The other school board members disqualified on the basis of their criminal records are Remond Palmer of Asbury Park; Richard Schaefer of Ringwood, Passaic County; and Victor Verlezza of Long Hill, Morris County. Kevin Kelleher of the Red Bank Charter School in Monmouth County and Lawrence Bryant of the Academy for Urban Leadership in Perth Amboy were disqualified as charter-school trustees.
Notices to the school boards of members who did not complete the check process could go out next week, Kobus said.
